Author: Lauren

I'm a reader, over-thinker, idealistic cynic, and hopeless knowledge seeker living in the wilds of Seattle, Washington. I write, but am not sure I'm a writer yet. I'm blind. I was an activist in my former life for the LGBTQIA etc community and still love reading about and discussing sexuality, queer issues, and living an out and authentic life... plus the constraints our society places on allowing us to exercise that right. I write about what it's like having a disability (I'm blind, you dig?), things I love about Seattle, and my hopeless addiction to all things culinary. Also, I'm on the bus a lot, so I write about that too.

Three Conversations

I’ve been doing a bit of bragging lately, people, and I’m here humbly to confess. Specifically, I’ve been bragging about how in Seattle, I feel much more “left alone” than I did in the Twin Cities. I can get on a bus here and no one will speak to me for the whole ride. No “nice dog.” No “what’s that?” (in reference to my BrailleNote). No talk about the weather, how great or terrible it is, no one asks where I’m going, (because this isn’t creepy at all; folks, please don’t do this). No, I boasted, people let me be here. They’ll lend a perfectly friendly hand if asked, but otherwise, we do our things. This is something that I actually enjoy about Boston and D.C. as well, and would you believe I just found a similar attitude among all three of these cities? Who knew?

Of course, just as I was getting all warm and fuzzy about this, I left my house on Thursday to run a few errands and stop by Chocolati. It is really dangerous that I live within a mile of a chocolate cafe. Are there two other words that belong so deliciously together? “chocolate cafe”, sigh. I read online that they also have a happy hour: a glass of wine and 2 truffles for 7 dollars, so if you visit me within the next forever I will be insisting on this.

But, but, I digress. I get on the bus for the 5 minutes it takes to get me where I need to be, and just as I’m about to get off at my stop, I have my first interaction. “I have to tell you,” this guy says, leaning over, not quite in my bubble but close, and I’m bracing myself for all the numerous things he could possibly “have” to tell me. “You have a very nicely shaped nose,” he says, and shockingly, this is not one of the things I had expected. “Wow,” I said, because you should know I am the epitome of social grace, “huh. Well, thank you.” “You should really be thanking your parents,” he calls after me as I slink off the bus. So, because I do as I’m told, thanks Mom and Dad. I guess?

Interaction Two comes after I’ve finished my chores and am heading for chocolate. I cross the street beside someone else and on the other side, promptly get stuck in a bank parking lot, as one does when one is being incredibly eager. Damn, I think, this is embarrassing, and she’s probably wondering what the heck I’m doing. She comes back to pull me out of the parking lot, which is very nice, and she wants to know where I’m going. I normally don’t like to tell people where I’m going, but she gives me good vibes so I tell her, and she says, “I’m going there too!” So we walk together and it turns out she’s from Denver, and has just moved to Seattle and is trying to figure things out. She gives me her number eventually and it’s a Twin Cities number. Then she buys me a truffle and says she has to go because she and her boyfriend are going to Portland for the weekend. I text her later with my number, but haven’t heard back yet. Now I’m very intrigued to see if I ever do. It’s my own sociology project.

I have my truffle and a rich cup of chocolate and espresso, and someone approaches my table and asks me about Kiva. Then he asks what I’m going to school for, which is very bizarre because I’m not sure how he figured out I’m a student. I wish I felt as scholarly as I apparently look. I stumble-mumble through my “writing, I know, it’s not very practical but it makes my soul happy so I’m doing it” shtick, and he says he teaches math at UW and asks me if I like Flannery O’Connor. I say I’ve liked what I’ve read but that my knowledge of her work is pretty limited. He says even though he’s a math professor he really likes writers. This conversation is definitely feeling awkward by this point, and so I sneak in that my partner is a math person too, and we get along well despite the extremes of our academic leanings. (I don’t actually think that everyone who tries to have an extensive conversation with me is trying to hit on me. Far from it. But it’s nice to have these tidbits to work into a floundering dialogue that is pretty much over by my standards, just in case.) As it turned out, this comment shuts down the math professor and he goes back to grading exams. I attempt to look super duper busy.

No more bragging for me. The moral of THURSDAY is: people are people everywhere, on every day and in every city. And I hope my truffle fairy texts me back.

Losing It

Today I had a day. I woke up at 4:00 this morning after having only gone to sleep a few hours earlier. I tossed and turned until I got up at 6:45. I had to go to DSB for another part of my “assessment” aka hoop-jumping so that I can be recommended for advocacy services which will hopefully make me an employed person again. I got assessed, hoop-jumped, felt scrutinized (whether I was or not), felt very blind (I definitely was), and headed home. It was one of those trips where, once I got home, the trip was so confusing that I couldn’t remember how I’d done it, only that somehow I had. That’s always disconcerting.

I went inside to make tea. I broke not one but two of my favorite teacups, the heavy-bottomed pottery one I got in Portland and a marbly-textured one I bought my first time in Seattle. Both had matcha powder in them, so now my floor is covered in green dust and glass.

I have an essay due earlier than I thought, and I can’t get it right. It is so limp and apathetic under my fingers and I want to grab it by the back of the neck and shake something into it. What, I don’t know. Maybe all that spilled matcha would perk it up.

It’s really gray and overcast, and I wish it would rain but it won’t.

My fridge is nearly empty, and I don’t have time or energy to go to the store or cook. What I needed to do seems fairly obvious at this point. So, I baked some cheese.

Feta, precisely. I can’t even remember when I started throwing feta at the oven and waiting for something to happen. I’m pretty sure I got the idea from a BBC network recipe, but that’s about as best as my memory can conjure. Also, since only a small percentage of you care about my dinner, I suspect it doesn’t matter much. Back to the cheese: I had a giant block of feta getting no love, and the good thing about going to DSB is that I can stop by Columbia City Bakery on the way home. AND, today they had a walnut and fig bread. No sweetness, except for the pockets of seedy figs, crunchy walnuts, an almost salty crust. Lacking a decent bread knife and since no one was there to judge I was ripping it apart with my hands and stuffing it in my face like a deranged person before I even remembered the feta. But I remembered, thankfully.

This bread probably should be eaten with goat cheese, but feta’s what I had so feta it was. I drained my giant block, plopped it on some foil, and gave the top a drizzle of olive oil, plus a scattering of herbes de provence and pepper flakes. I think the original recipe calls for oregano, but herbes de provence is the thing I will always try to use for sprinkling if there’s any possible way I can get away with it. Lavender’s a tricky little thing, though, so I use it less than I’d like. Then I scrunched the foil around the feta, put it on a baking sheet, and into the oven. I hovered for about 10 minutes, decided it was soft enough, and ate it with the bread. I never did bother with a utensil, because my alone eating habits are atrocious.

Now, back to rearranging all the lack-luster words in my lack-luster essay over and over and listening to Portishead on repeat until I can’t think any more and must, must sleep. Hopefully more sunny posts next week, when I’ll be on spring break.

We are on the bridge
dumped there by a squealing bus
like wobbly fawns in a wilderness of sure-pedaled cars
They are everywhere and I am shouting.
We inch along
my hand
trailing the mossy wall
who knows what else is growing there and my fingers
shrink cowardly against my will
She is tentative but trusts me.
She probably shouldn’t, but she doesn’t know.
It’s all a lot of noise with very little danger
like fear
like life
I’m not afraid of it hurting
I’m just afraid it won’t wait for me.
Slow-footed, she and I
we can’t wait to be on the ground
safe, off display
she finds me stairs, wagging, hopeful
We slink down,
down into depths that I didn’t know but now do
under the bridge is a place we sort of understand
where just weeks ago we were strangers
we are now strangers, but intimate
like fear
like life
we are touching ground, and she is bounding and happy
her once unfamiliar is familiar
toenails clattering like constancy
she sprints towards her reward
and I concede that yes,
she’ll probably get her eared scratched and her belly rubbed
when we get home.

I’ve been quiet (ish) regarding the conversations surrounding women and street harassment that have been circulating the Internet in the last few months. Mostly, it’s because I agree that yelling at or trying to chat up women who are just going about their business is not ok, and that it’s an epidemic with roots of sexism and privilege that are as deep as the snow in Boston. And I don’t have much else to add on this point, so I’ve tried to be quiet and to listen to others who need the space to tell us their stories.

I get my share of catcalls when I’m out in the world. They are uncomfortable and unwanted. Once, some guy yelled from his car that I was the most “beautiful blind chick” he’s ever seen. Which is sort of funny, in a really sad way, and also not ok to yell at someone. I’ve definitely been the recipient of the all too common, “Smile baby. You’re so much prettier when you smile.” Lots of other comments centered around me being blind. I learned early in my bus traveling career not to engage with men who asked me questions or told me lengthy stories about a “friend” of theirs who was blind, and could they have my number for that friend? Seriously?

And you know what? I’ll come clean here: when I was in college and never took the bus, and hardly walked anywhere alone outside of campus, I had some of the same feelings other people have expressed about this issue. Feelings like: “Oh, they’re just trying to be nice”, or, “Come on, you should be flattered, someone’s telling you you’re beautiful, isn’t that GOOD?” They were feelings born from naivete. Sadly, sometimes you can’t learn something, truly, unless you experience it yourself, or see it experienced by someone who is close to you.

I never feel completely at ease walking by myself, even in familiar neighborhoods. And it’s not because I’m afraid of getting lost. No, it’s because I’m afraid some dude will try to talk to me and I won’t be able to escape. Does this keep me from living my life? No, not usually, but I absolutely, 100 percent understand that for some who have it worse than I, it would.

It became clear to me the other day while I was having coffee and working, the extent to which I have been conditioned to be on my guard against physical and verbal attention. A man approached my table, (though I didn’t see him, of course), and said, “Excuse me, are you by yourself?” Before my logical brain could sift through a bunch of perfectly acceptable reasons he might be asking me this, I felt my defenses skyrocket. In these moments, I can physically feel my body preparing to deflect confrontation. My face slithers into itself, closing tight like a fist. My spine straightens, steeling my muscles. My shoulders tense. I look straight ahead, not at the person, pretend I don’t hear or care or understand. A beat passed. He said, “Um, it’s just that, we have a group of seven, and if you’re by yourself, we were wondering if we could switch tables with you.” That was it. He didn’t actually say, “Because if you’re by yourself, I thought I might rape you”, or, (the more realistic one), “Because you’re a beautiful young lady.” No, he just wanted my table, and I fell all over myself to move me and my laptop and the coffee and the dog to give it to him, because I KNOW that I had been rude and actually, contrary to what you might think, I don’t want to be rude. But this is how I’ve built a shell around myself over the years, because the majority of the time they want something else, something more than a table, and even if that something is just a smile and a “thank you” or some other response I’m supposed to give based on being passive and being a woman, I shouldn’t have to adhere to that expectation just to appease someone else’s ego.

I hate that I had that reaction to the table switching guy. I felt badly about it. But as Ani Difranco says, “In this city, self-preservation is a fulltime occupation.” And I’m not getting paid to walk by myself and remain vulnerable to the things that I can’t see, but sometimes, I feel like I should be making millions.

A month and a half here, and I still am confounded by my neighborhood. I keep reminding myself that it’s not like I was some uptown superwoman when I lived in Minneapolis, either. I didn’t get lost much after I’d been there for a while, but “a while” was at least a year. I remember (and some of you remember) the raging battles I fought with Hennepin as I learned to cross it, diagonally and all. Lyndale never tripped me up as much, but its super long blocks often made me forget which one I was on. I never encountered bridges on a day to day basis, but I know there were some, somewhere.

I keep reading that Seattle is a really walkable city, which begs the question, walkable for whom? It’s probably really walkable for people who can read street signs or walk in a straight line. (Yes, I know, most of you will tell me you can’t walk in a straight line either, thanks for reminding me. But, most of you you do have your eyes to get you back on track.)

I live close to a bridge, which I must walk under to get pretty much anywhere I want to go. Under the bridge, I must navigate a street which is not straight, various structures I don’t have a name for but which my friend Nina calls pile-ons (thanks, Nina!), and usually about a thousand kids on a class field trip. And-or, a thousand adults with their dogs. Why the kids and dogs? Under this particular bridge there is a troll, which is a big tourist attraction in my neighborhood. I get it, trolls under bridges are pretty awesome. The street which branches off from the bridge is called Troll Avenue, which I also admit has some kitsch value to it. Oh, there is also lots of mud.

Because this can be a confusing bit of space to navigate for me, it is confusing for Kiva as well. It’s hard enough getting us through there without the extra kids and dogs and dogs and kids, but when they’re around, I know I’m screwed. There are many cries of, “Doggie!” There are many sniffy, wet noses (those are dogs, not kids, I hope). There are piles of mud that Kiva thinks really need to be investigated. Damn kids, damn dogs, damn mud.

Then there are the streets. I’m not sure which clever person thought to put Fremont Avenue, Fremont Lane, Fremont Place, and Fremont Way close to one another. But thanks, clever person. There are so many streets that don’t go all the way through, or streets that turn into other streets, that I’ll often look at my GPS to tell me which street I’m on, and all it has to offer is, “near unnamed.” Thank you, also, technology, I’m so glad somebody paid for you. There is a big island in the middle of 35th. There is a bridge at the bottom of 34th; it’s called the Fremont Bridge, who knew?

Some days, I get it right. We go under the bridge, and because I am urging her with food and praise and that Tiffany collar I still haven’t gotten her, Kiva ignores the dogs and kids and kids and dogs. And mud. We cross 35th and manage to do it without wandering into traffic or tripping over the giant island. We avoid the Fremont Bridge. And I feel like I’ve really accomplished something spectacular. I feel like someone cute has just asked me out, or I wrote something I actually stand behind, or I got a job interview. Instead, I just walked a few blocks without totally effing up, something that most people do every day and don’t even think about.

And then there are the days. The days that I do none of it right, and I feel embarrassed because I’ve done this how many times now, and I still can’t get it right? I feel dumb, and even though I know “dumb” doesn’t really exist and even if it does is completely subjective, I still feel it. I always think of something an ex told me once, when I was having a hard time getting Kiva through a parking lot to a spot where she could pee: “You’ve done this how many times and you STILL get lost.” Never mind that there are good reasons for this, that parking lots are open and unpredictable and it’s valid that I might loose my way in them. Bridges and giant islands are the same. I know this and yet I still can’t help that voice in my head that tells me I should know how to do this by now.

It’ll be ok and I’ll figure it out, because I have before and I can. But in the meantime, if someone has an idea of how to keep the kids and dogs and mud at bay, I’m all ears.

I miss Tammy and Matthew at Caffetto, each for completely different reasons.
I miss knowing what block of my neighborhood I’m on, just from the way the ground feels.
I miss making fun of Minnesotans, because I was one.
I miss the sharp cold contrasting with sharp sunshine.
I miss the excitement of the possibility of leaving.
I Miss my people. So, so much.
I Miss the people at the Wedge: seriously some of the most collectively kind, patient, hilarious, chill folks I’ve ever known. I miss how they never treated me like a problem.
I don’t actually miss the bus conversation, but I miss the predictability of it.
I miss poling.
I Think I just miss knowing what I was gonna get. Now my life is more like the box of chocolates.
I’m ok, but I still miss.

What I did in 2015

So, I moved to Seattle.  All the good-byes and the lasts and the crying has culminated into me being here, after an early and restless flight.  I’ll stay with a friend tonight and sign my lease tomorrow, when, winter gods willing, my Minnesota things will arrive and we will fill the unfamiliar with familiar, the empty spaces with the objects that make this permanent.  Or, at least, that would make it another pain in the ass bundle of logistics and angst to shuffle back home.

All of this sounds very dramatic.  And, I’ll admit, in my head it is.  I’m a sucker for a good wallow from a good tragedy.  That the tragedy is mine gives me more to sink into literarily.  But it’s also just plain hard.  I mourned and exaulted over this move for three months, and I will continue to do so in the months to come.  The most important thing is that I wanted this, I longed for something new, I felt my restless feet getting itchy and I leaped because I knew I could.  That’s not to sound presumptuous, or to give myself an ego stroke.  It’s just that I’ve moved before, I’ve dealt with adversity before, and I felt that it was worth the dealing and that I had the grit to deal again.

I know New Year’s resolutions are THE WORST for a lot of people.  I’m doing a little eye-rolling writing this, too, but I have to put it here for posterity.  My resolution this year is to squeeze all the joy and novelty and fear and angst and jubilance out of this opportunity that I have.  Missing home is a natural part of it, but I can’t and won’t let it be an all-consuming part, or a crutch for why, hypothetically, I haven’t embraced the new that I have.  Happy 2015, and thank you so much for reading this little slice of my life in 2014.  Thank you for coming with me. I hope you’ll stay. I can’t promise all teh happy endings, but I can promise heavy snark laid over pragmitism, with a tiny bit of the idealist thrown in for good measure.  Basically, I just wanna make you laugh.

I met a friend for tea the other day and as we looked over the overwhelming tea list, I said, “This kinda reminds me of a place I really like in Pike’s Place Market. It’s called Market Spice. They have EVERYTHING.” It took us both a few confused sentences to realize I was talking about Seattle and hadn’t said so.

I am in between. Most of the time, my feet are here. They still walk here, and know where they’re going. My head is in Seattle, or planning Seattle; where I will live, how I will get to Whidbey Island, who I will meet, where I will eat, which parks Kiva will like, how the pattern of my footsteps will change. The rest of me is between, my emotions spiraling from almost manic excitement to a loss that makes it hard for me to breathe. Knowing what I need to do, what I will do, what I ultimately want to do, and knowing to do it will mean I leave a life that is brimming with warmth. Who knew there was so much of it in Minnesota?

I started telling strangers I was going to move to Seattle even before I started telling friends. I wanted to know how the words would feel. I was always met with envy foremost, then, “How we you leave Minnesota?” I can’t complain; it’s great to live in a place where people love to live. I felt somewhat dismissive two months ago. “Oh, well,” I said, “I’ll come visit. It’ll be fine. I’ll come in the summer!” (Har de har, the jokes just keep on coming.) Now, I feel torn in two directions; my ambition in one pocket, my mouth watering for change; my self-preservation in the other pocket, begging me, like a child, not to leave.

Part of preservation lies in my need for control. I know what I get when I stay here, year after year the same. There’s a comfort to knowing what to expect. But, there’s an excitement which lies only in being afraid and doing it anyway that I almost suspect I need in order to feel alive.

Being between means I can love the place where my feet are as fiercely as I can. It means I can anticipate the place where my head is as hopefully as I can. It means I use the stuff in the middle to make the most of the time I’ve got left and think about the time when I come back. Because I will come back, probably in the summer.

I don’t mean to brag, but I’m getting the fuck out of here this winter. It’s a good thing, because the mood that I am in today (November 12), when it is 20 degrees and there is a slip-slidey skating rink outside my door and I have no iceskates, is what you might generously describe as grumpy. More accurately, I’m annoyed and disgruntled. Just call me Crankypants Bitchface. At least my earrings are nice.

I’ve been listening to people complain about the weather ever since I moved to Minnesota, and I’ve often thought condescendingly, well, if you’re going to complain, why don’t you just move? That was when I was in college, and was only required to skip smugly across a tiny campus, much of which was linked by skyways; trundle back and forth from the grocery store every few weeks, many times by car; and drink big, foamy cups of hot chocolate in the cuddly comfort of the brightly lit student center under the pretense of “studying” but actually just talking with my friends. This isn’t meant to sound like some “good old days” college post, but the romance of Midwest winter faded faster than its fleeting summer when I graduated, started taking the bus and walking everywhere, and realized that no matter how many times I walked it in July, a route feels completely alien when it isn’t shoveled.

I seem to be getting sadder earlier every winter. I don’t think it’s a sunshine thing; the snow-glinty sun shone blindingly for days last winter, but with the temperatures as cold as they were, walking anywhere was miserable, and I had to walk everywhere. The other option is staying home, which tends to work until January (though with winter coming in November this year, who knows how much earlier that will be), when I can’t take the feeling of my empty but crowded apartment any more and I venture out anyway, with little thought to the weather or my footware. It was during one of those periods last year, when I stopped on my way home from work in the throes of a snowstorm, and drank a few beers and read something really pretentious while drifts piled up outside and the bar emptied around me. I was congratulating myself on the romance of it all, until I realized the buses weren’t running and I needed my GPS to walk home. I should have called a taxi, but my stubbornness sent me face first into the sharp, flying snow and angry wind. I thought I had something to prove, but the only thing I proved was that no, my BrailleNote was not waterproof, even in its case, and using it for only a few seconds to check the GPS could indeed mandate a three-month repair and 5000 dollars.

Around April, when it was still cold, still snowing, and I still felt like crying several times a day, I started teasing myself with the idea that I didn’t have to prove anything any more. Not to anyone, and especially not to myself.

Last spring, the full weight of the importance of writing in my life started to shape itself into something large enough that I could no longer ignore it in favor of something more “practical.” The huge relief of coming spring mixed sourly with the dread of another winter. I’m just going to say, it’s really time to do something when you realize that your enjoyment of now is being compromised by your dread of something yet to come. If I couldn’t enjoy summer because of next winter, why was I still here?

So this year, I’m leaving. At any given time, I don’t know which I crave more, constancy or change, certainty or adventure. Maybe this move will tell me which, once and for all, but probably not. It will probably just tell me whether I enjoy a rainy winter more or less than a snowy one. And in the meantime, Crankypants Bitchface and her earrings will still be around until January. Better not tell me to “smile, baby” if you aren’t expecting me to throw snowballs at you. Or, if you’re outside my apartment, iceballs. Don’t say I never warned you.

Sometimes you go out when you shouldn’t
You walk streets you’re not sure you should walk
The maps are there, but shaky
Your head is there, but shaky.
And you walk without knowing the path or the cracks
but you have to make it look like you do.
All you have is your mind and your faith in it.
“I hope this is right” will move your feet for miles
You don’t know what you’re doing, but you’re doing it.

It doesn’t matter that you want to hesitate
that your insides are a squishy mass of fear and uncertainty
and that your back is tense with the effort of listening for footsteps behind you
they’ll know you’re lost the closer they come.
So you don’t let them know
you walk steadfast, straight ahead, chin fixed and determined
and you cross the tricky traffic
sometimes without waiting to find its pattern
because you spend so much time in life
waiting
for a word of conviction, for a break from the cold,
for a love without restriction.
So you take your chances with the traffic
and soon you almost feel like it won’t hurt
adrenaline high, highway high, traveling high
across Rena, Coolidge, Franklin, Harvard
names that mean nothing and everything
because words and cold and love are flighty
but street names are true until they’re not
and then you’re lost until you’re not
and you’re scared until you’re not.
You’d think someday it would get easier
but then you’d also think that someday, it would stop being so damn fun
And even though you’d think so,
neither has happened yet
for me.