the calm before, and after

BON IVER "Holocene" from nabil elderkin on Vimeo.

Calm.

I completed Phase One of the grand move today. Or perhaps it's actually Phase Two, or TwopointFive, here I am, on a couch, in a new apartment that needs a coat of paint. I am happy to be here. I am anxiously giving the place a mental-makeover. I cannot wait to bake something. It's my form of christening. A bottle of champagne cracked on a banister, a loaf of chocolate banana bread emerging from the oven. I'm just ready to settle.

My brother is here, for which I am grateful. Apart from a migraine-induced meltdown at Bar Boulud, which culminated in my screaming a tearful epithet at him across the table as the hostess gracefully swooped in, top-knot bobbing, and ushered our food back to the kitchen, we're really getting along quite well. Today we even shared some dumplings and a chocolate-root beer ice cream sandwich at the Grand Army Food Truck Fest. Shared! Generously!

Oh, hi. 

Sweet things, I'm tired. This kind of tired. It's a lesser form of the migraine hysteria, where all my attention is concentrated on the boiling point in my brain, and if things are not exactly as they need to be I lose my ability to simply walk the line of basic human interaction. It's been storming all week in New York, grand gestures from above that swoop down hard and firm across the city, the sky going wide and black all at once. I'm thankful for the little things, like squid ink pasta, like Netflix, like pull-out couches. I'm thankful for my brother and his obsession with upper-body strength. I'm thankful for Caitlin, who is still shifting her life around mine, and for these new people who made room on their couch and under their table and in their home. I'm thankful for Bon Iver and Iceland and whoever thought to put them together. I'm thankful for glitter and Mexican leftovers. I'm thankful that a coat of paint can still make things right.