daniel bday

happiest of birthdays to the most handsome, supportive, wonderful, thoughtful man i know. 

 today is for you. 

you are my companion, my love bug, my best friend. you have been a constant comfort as i navigate these rough and uncharted post-collegiate waters. you inspire me to be a better person, to aim to succeed at everything i try and to learn something valuable when i fail. you have been a wonderful support in getting my blog going, and are my best critic.

there is so much i would like to say, but truly “you know all my favorite singers have stolen all of my best lines.”

i love you daniel marc, happy birthday.

we've all got both light & dark inside us. what matters is the part we choose to act on. that's who we really are.

ok, it’s confession time.  in the third week of seventh grade i was sitting in my mixed media class and waiting for the bell to ring when sam, the boy sitting next to me, erupted in laughter from behind his book.  he pushed it down, composed himself and told me point blank that i absolutely had to read these books.

that was the day harry potter entered my world for the first time, or really i should say i entered his.  it was the summer of 1999, when joanne rowling decided to announce a set publication date of 3:45pm (which would become midnight in later releases) and the concept of the harry potter book release party was born. 

by the end of the third book i was hopelessly absorbed, and with the coming of the fourth book i never missed one release.  i held the ticket marked 001  in a line of hundreds at a borders book store that doesn’t even exist anymore.  

“yet no sales could compete with the visual – a line of children around one independent bookstore, waiting for the exact moment they could crack the covers.  their excited faces made the story more than astronomical sales figures: it made it about children enjoying a book.”

bloomburry publisher barry cunningham explained that what he sought after were, ‘books children hugged, books they loved, books that made them feel like the author was their best friend.’  harry potter embodied that description for me in every way.

they became my greatest secret and my greatest ally.  i remember emptying out my backpack to make room for the first three books.  i would bring them all to school just in case i finished one so i wouldn’t have to sit, painfully anticipating the end of the day, and my chance to rush home to open the next installment.  i read those books absolutely ragged, today they sit on my shelf with rips, stains, broken spines and lots and lots of love. 

to a generation of kids developing with the digital age, j.k. rowling made literature matter. “they sold things that aren’t supposed to sell, at a time when fantasy books weren’t supposed to appeal to a generation of people who weren’t supposed to care.” 

there was just something about them. something that captivated my attention and held it head and shoulders above anything else in my world.  

i cannot say exactly what the heart of it’s allure was and is.  i think everyone wants to believe, to some degree, that there is something greater waiting for us than what we have come to expect.  we have all looked up, at one time or another, from under the cap of what makes our lives normal and even difficult, and hoped for a tiny spark to set us apart.  to one-day wake up in an unchanged world with a note placed delicately on our pillow, inviting us into something that we knew was hiding under the cloak of normality all along. 

who wouldn’t want that chance to feel truly uniquely special?  but it is bigger than the merging of a fantastical world with an otherwise boring one. 

i wanted that world, and it was written out in such detail that it existed all but tangibly for me when i buried myself in the off white pages and garamond type.

as steven king put it, “harry potter is all about confronting fears, finding inner strength, and doing what is right in the face of adversity.” so essentially it is about the stuff that life is made of. it runs parallel to the guts of our existence, but it’s even more than that.

in my generation people either have read, and therefore love the books, or their significance is absolutely lost to them.  in one broadcast of 'this american life', david ellis dickerson explained his outward understanding of devotion to something. 

“i love star trek.  but if you asked me to defend individual episodes, i would be at a loss, because i can’t go to bat for everything star trek did, i just loved the concept…”

the difference is that i stand firmly behind what j.k. rowling did, but the reception and perception gleaned by some is what i cannot, and will not, defend.  at this point you’re either into it or you’re not.  you either understand the phenomenon, or you don’t.

i am part of a generation of people who uniquely remember having to painstakingly wait to find out what came next, and to shut out the electronic world for fear of spoilers. when wormtail got away i was distracted by what that meant for the future of the series for an entire year. when it became clear that harry and hermoine were not going to fall in love i was debating the end of my first serious relationship.  when i finally understood the connection between harry and voldemort i was dealing with identity issues between who i was going to become and the person that my father is. when dumbledore died i cried on all the pages. 

it was there for me.  it got me.

i have been waiting most of my life on the secrets of harry’s world, so yes, today is a big deal.  the final cinematic chapter of this saga’s life is out in theaters and i’ve had my ticket for months.  harry appeared in my life at just the right time.  that in-between, becoming something and not yet anything stage.  the hurdle stage.

and now oddly enough he is leaving in the midst of another hurdle in my life. he isn’t really gone though.  this is the end of an era, but it will never be the end for those of us who’s lives have journeyed alongside harry’s.  for those of us grew up with the boy who lived.

thank you to melissa anelli, webmistress of the leaky cauldron, writer of harry, a history and kindred spirit, for the quotes.

ten decisions shape your life, you'll be aware of 5

this morning started off in a fairly typical fashion.  i woke up to kensey pushing his wet little nose in my ear and purring with all the horsepower he could muster to let me know it was time to go out.  

i stumbled around with one eye open and collapsed back into bed, searching blindly for the time.  i rolled around until i found my cell phone, noted the 45 minutes i had until my alarm would go off and checked my mail.   

a message in my design gmail box stirred my attention enough pry both eyes open, because frankly it’s still exciting to see mail in that inbox. it was a tweet referencing young alumni made by my cousin kim.

‘but that can’t possibly be right?’ i thought. 

i entered the rebecca minkoff contest, oddly enough, when i saw it on kim’s facebook so it must have been some kind of misunderstanding.  i got up to get dressed, since i clearly wasn’t getting a last minute nap in, all the while refusing to look online at the contest results.

i didn’t want to look and have the balloon of hope that was growing in my throat burst when i discovered it was just a mis-communication, but curiosity finally got the better of me and between blow drying sessions i hopped on the computer.

here’s the part where typical flew out the window.  i opened the page and there it was, staring back at me: my name in capital letters proclaimed by rebecca minkoff as the contest winner.  i couldn’t believe it!  

i practically exploded out of my chair and flew to my phone.  i did laps around my tiny efficiency; calling everyone i could think of and leaving obnoxiously excited voicemails and texts.  

winning a contest, no matter what the prize, gives this renewed sense of place.  today i feel like more than just one tiny number squeezed between billions.  thank you so much to my cousin kim for posting the contest at just the right time, and to rebecca minkoff for choosing me to share her beautiful bag with.  

talk about a great way to start the day!

there's something wrong, we can't stay still

friday night at the palm beach roller derby, not your average weekend activity.  

it all started when heather and i ran into a high school friend involved in the local division.  she gave us a flyer for their next match, and that simply isn't the kind of invitation you decline.

i really wasn’t sure what to expect.  i’ve never seen whip it, and aside from the episode of clarissa explains it all where sam’s mom comes home from the roller derby, i had no point of reference.   

from the minute we entered we could feel tangible adrenaline pumping through the room.  the girls flew in unison around the track, warming up and working on togetherness and agility.  on the sidelines fans dressed in purple held signs with cut throat sayings, shook cow bells and waved foam fingers.  

for those of you who are clueless as i was, allow me to do my best to explain. the game is divided into 2 thirty-minute halves.  there are two teams and one track.  

each team sends out five players – one ‘jammer’ who scores points and four ‘blockers’ who act as defense.  you can tell who the jammer is because she has a star on her helmet.  one of the blockers is called the ‘pivot’. she acts as the leader of the blockers, shouting orders and controlling the pace.

all the blockers together are called the pack and when the whistle is blown the ‘jam’ begins and the pack heads out.  once the entire pack cluster crosses the starting (pivot) line the jammers, who are positioned 20 feet behind the pack, can go.  

here begins the rough and tumble aspect of the game.  the jammers have to get through the pack and that is most assuredly not without a fight.  elbows fly, hips check, it’s like a way more serious game of red rover.  if you are knocked out of bounds you must reenter the ring behind the person who knocked you out, and if you fall you better tuck because there is a good chance you’re getting run over.

after the jammers get through the pack once they can begin to score points. every person on the opposing team that is passed is a point. while they get pretty hands on, unnecessary roughness will get you stuck in the penalty box for one minute, and if it’s your jammer that means an entire minute without any point scoring. 

of course there is much more to it, but that is the depth of my novice level of understanding.

when the dj came over the pa system and hollered incomprehensible static garble, everyone lined up along the flat track.  each girl was introduced and took a turn around the loop; slapping hands with members from both teams and gliding back into place with serious style.  some of the more triumphant skaters have a following that is expressed in earnest from the sidelines.

they paint their faces with lightning bolts and checkered flags, and they all have great pseudonyms like pyromantic, crazy bones, electrix, britzkreig, shred-her, fatal injury, and boondock bates.  as it turns out a pretty good chunk of the palm beach roller girls are fellow alum from our high school.  seeing them fly, fight and glide their way to a 145-120 victory against the fort myers roller girls was an incredible performance.  

there was this crash where two opponents collided at break neck speed and fell backwards at the second pivot on the track.  their skates tangled together and they were rendered immobile for a few seconds; an eternity for a 2 minute jam. what i momentarily anticipated would dissolve into a screaming match became a great moment where they laughed and, though pitted against each other in a veritable battle royale, helped untangle each other's skates and get back up.   

i watched on the sidelines through scratched plexi glass and couldn’t help but admire the personal identity these girls have found.  these are strong women, motivated and dedicated to an empowering full-contact sport. 

the do-it-yourself ethic shines through in their style and athleticism, and while there is certainly a third-wave feminist feel, the diversity of the room pushes through to harmoniously overwhelm the arena.

roller derby is a relatively underground, counterculture movement, so by and large these are people who put on a different face in the morning when they head to school or to work their 9-5.   there’s no one asking them to, but these girls voluntarily practice 2-3 hours, three nights a week.  this is real life for them.  eat, breathe, sweat, practice, dominate.   

if you have one competitive bone in your body, you’ll find yourself wishing you had a pair of skates on as you watch.  i’m certainly not the type looking to get knocked around, i think i have a pretty big self-preservation bone, but i was practically ready to sign up by the end of the first half. even heather's 50-nothing pound little sister caught the fever.

our natural human inclination is to feed off of the motivation and drive of others.  when we surround ourselves with passionate people, it creates a transformative effect. like minded, ambitious people create a friction which begets a fervent desire to attain what we want. to push harder, dig deeper, sacrifice more.  

it doesn’t matter how we apply it, be it at our jobs, our sports, or in our relationships, motivation is magnetic and we should all work to surround ourselves with energy that lifts us up instead of holding us in place or pushing us down.

the palm beach roller girls are fierce competitors, and they’re a good example of how fiercely passionate we should all be about what we do.  thanks girls, and congratulations!

to learn more visit the palm beach roller girls online. some photos courtesy of wayne patenaude.

mayfly, woken up when skies are blue, i don't mind the sight of you

one very distinct memory i have of summer as a child is lying in the hammock at my family’s lake house in indiana.  the summer weather in the northeast turns crisp and fresh in a way that the humid florida climate would never allow.  i was wrapped in a light blanket, and afternoon rays came peaking through these colossal trees above me.  

i had a book resting in my lap that i had grown too lazy to hold up and my body was all but ready to give out for a good long nap.  as i drifted out of consciousness, forcing my last ounces of energy towards keeping my eyes trained on the offshoots of sunlight, i can remember specifically thinking, “i’m going to remember this.  this is going to be a memory i will hold on to.”

this past weekend i visited indiana for the first time in 3 years.  the beauty of coming back to a place that you have developed a historical love affair with is that everything seems to fall seamlessly into place. when i set foot on the property it was as though i was just coming back from the store.  the rhythm of my routine was as familiar and comfortable as ever, how could i have been gone so long?

i rounded the corner to the front of the house where my uncle built a new deck last year and its presence was instantly absorbed into the architecture of my memory.  nothing to throw me off or wrench me from the familiarity of time and space, just an addition to what has always been and what will continue to be.  

it’s strange the way the scenery has a way of bending and blending time.  it creates an air of nostalgia that gives way to a relaxed reflection. 

the swing on the front lawn still moves ever so slightly as though kitty, my greatly missed aunt, had just stood up to break from a good book or a knitting project.  

at night i imagine the fireflies are all the same ones i've caught hundreds of times before, just making their nightly rounds.

during our afternoon boat trips we are surrounded by homes proudly dressed in the staples of patriotism, stars and stripes and brightly colored lawn furniture.  sometimes i feel like everyone on the lake is always celebrating our independence, and i just show up every so often to witness it.  the weekend was marked by the smell of smoky bar-b-que’s and fireworks. 

i think that’s really what gets me the most. the sounds and smells.

the water rocks the pontoon with the same gentle gait that it always has, echoing against the hollow transom and sponsons in a melody that can only be heard during late morning naps.  

the muffled hum of boat engines propelling forward amid choppy lake water is the ambient soundtrack of the afternoon.  it mixes with cries of delight from children in tubes barreling in tow, and the friendly paddleboat whistles of the dixie making it’s regular cruise across the lake.

these are the sounds and smells that are my summer. they are what i have known in my youth and are a part of me as an adult.  the beauty of coming back when the span between childhood and adulthood is crossed is that it gives you a time machine perspective on your life.

the nine miles of shoreline that stretch out before our cottage appear just the same as they’ve always been, but in truth they have changed steadily with the shedding of years, just like me.  i look the same as i always have, with maybe a few more wrinkles than i expected at 24, but it’s inside where i’ve really been changing.

there in that very same hammock i could lay and look up at the very same trees i napped beneath all those years ago, but time has done a lot to the little girl dozing in the sun.  

when the normalcy of life is suspended, we are able to acknowledge that which is pushed away, ignored and managed around. indiana is my calm place.  it's where i don't need a schedule or a plan, just the sunlight and the water.

in the absence of my frustrations i can see that i have allowed the small troubles of my life to overwhelm my attitudes and views.  i push my thoughts to what will be and forget to pour my heart into the now.  i feel mentally prepared for a place i have yet to define, so i’m forcing myself into a suspended animation, and it’s time to make a change.   

i need to regain the unshakable optimism and brightness of my youth, and i need to relearn patience.

on our last night after the fireworks were spent and our ears were ringing from the residual effects of mortars, we lit paper lanterns.  danny and i held ours until the very last second, and when we let go of them – i tried to let it carry away the shell i’ve incased my troubles in.  what i need is not a distraction, but a hard look at the facts.

it’s time to address and repair what i otherwise would have continued to step over. i'm proud of who i am, but i still have a lot of growing to do.  sometimes we have to shake off what we know and get a glimpse of ourselves with a fresh perspective, and for me there is no better way to do that then through the glass telescope of my younger self.

looking back at those trees this time i could see myself patiently wondering who i would become.  i always thought i would know who i was and what i was meant to do by now. it's frustrating not to know, but what i'm coming to realize is that as long as i'm working to be the best person i can, persistent and constant like the massive oaks above me, it's ok to still be unsure of who i will be. it will happen, with patience.