alive, alone, not lonely.

It’s April Fool’s.  I got nothin’.  Sorry.

I had this elaborate plan to convince the doctor at my routine check-up this morning that I was a hermaphrodite, but I chickened out… and she would’ve figured out soon enough… it was a ladydoctor appointment.  [TMI?  mehdunno.]

After my appointment I disappeared to a small coffee shop that serves flat whites and delightful pastries… all on precious, mismatched, vintage china.

I felt alive, alone, not lonely, present reading a book.  Such an amazing book.  Maybe a new fave.

And I started underlining things as I became wrapped up in this book.  I couldn’t put it down.  I meant to stay at this café for a hot second [approx. 20 min.] and all the sudden I was there for an hour and a half, turning page after page… frantically starting another chapter after the final period of the last… scared of reading too quickly because if I wasn’t careful, I would read right to the finish… without realizing [preparing myself for] the end.

I picture me singing loud to my new favorite song and then the power goes out and I’m left singing without music… hearing myself… knowing how bad I really sound… the song has stopped.  The book is over.

All that to say that I was taken back to Australia… and I’m sure you’re over me saying that.  Over me talking about the shitty year, that hard time and all the glorious invisibility it gave me.  But sitting there, drinking my flat white, I felt like I was in Australia… and then Alison Espach wrote this:

“There was something about being in a foreign country that validated and glorified your own sense of isolation.  My loneliness felt epic…”

Ugh.  I felt so close to her.  So close to myself.  My Australia self.

And it made me want to find that again.  In a foreign country.  She also said:

“I’ve never felt more like my unself.  People should really say, I’m going to Europe to find out who I’m not.”

And I wanted to go to Europe… more than before.

And I couldn’t stop reading.  Couldn’t stop being there.

And I just wanted to share.

And then I drove home and listened to Jessica Lea Mayfield:

[happy april first.]