That Kind Of Woman

I remember as a young child taking trips up to my grandparent’s farm. I remember every turn in the roads we took. I remember the place where my mom pointed across a field then into some woods. ‘There’s a castle back there’ She would say ’ Your uncles and I used to hike back there for the day and play in it.’ 

I remember the first time I drove to my grandparents alone in the car. I was 17 or so. I remember very vividly imagining this castle. Would it be like the ruins that cover the countryside in Ireland? Not that I had ever seen those in person. Just in the BBC and masterpiece theatre series my mom used to watch every Sunday night in the small living room of the end row home that I lived in until I was 8.  I remember sitting on the floor and the opening shots of the cartoon people wailing on the tops of a cartoon estate. Masterpiece mystery. I always thought my mom was watching a movie about the board game Clue. 

Apparently the castle is no longer there. In the 40 years since my mom played on it, the owners apparently had it deconstructed, or at least what was left. I remember how unbearably sad I became when I thought about that.  Castle don’t exist in my grandparent’s back yard. But for the gang of boisterous and curious grandkids that we were, they did. Castles, and trolls that lived under fallen trees and big rocks. Trolls that stomped through the woods at night knocking down more trees and collecting frogs as their minions. My grandfather still wears the faded jeans and fisherman’s sweaters when he emerges from his office on their farm, that he did when supervising our ruckus as children. 

Now, very infrequently, I get to go up to the farm, the same familiar roads. The garden has lost it’s tameness since my grandmother stopped working in it. It’s wild, and only restricted by the lawn mower. My grandfather and I last sat in the chairs overlooking the west side of the farm and we talked about my attempts to write poetry. A passion for him, and a talent having not only read his poetry but published it. He lets me read his poems. I get wrapped up in nostalgia, in the stores he has layered in neat stanzas. He makes me read mine aloud, and suggests changes, removals and substitutes.

The lawn still sweeps down to the woods. As I grew up, I learned that native indians were more common then knights. That these woods, and the landscape belonged to no one. Nature stood on it’s own. I think about how the earth ages, and how my parents aged. How Pop Pop aged. His stories.

How he met my grandmother, in an acting class. How he went to Penn State part time and worked as a lifeguard at the Jersey Shore. He tells me stories about how stubborn my mother was, especially when it came to her passion for riding horses. She would fall, get bucked or get trampled and stand up even more determined. How she used to beat up the boys who used to beat up her younger brother. 

He gives me books to read. Classics, books of poems. He jokes with me about dating. He’s quick witted. He can charm anyone, especially my friends.

A lot of things about my past have made me realize what I want in the future. Made me realize a very important thing. If I can’t introduce you to my family, my mother, or my grandfather, and know that you will keep up with the gentle ribbing, the wit and snark, then I don’t think I will ever fall in love with you.  If I can’t sit down and tell you about castles, aging, and my childhood then I don’t think I could really ever love you. 

I, like my father, and my grandfathers am a story teller. I take pleasure in being able to ensnare an audience with my words, and have an exchange afterwards or during. 

It makes me realize what stories I have collected and gathered and how they will be passed down, and it makes me think about the kind of woman I am now, and how that will effect the kind of woman I am in 40 years. 

**Rough writing, when I basically write what comes to mind, almost exactly. With no editing. Extremely raw and rough. 

(Source: thatkindofwoman)

There are stunningly beautiful things in this world. All you have to do is surround yourself with them in a way that comes naturally. 

(Source: thatkindofwoman)

 I am terribly nostalgic. I am forever remembering. I like music where the singer’s voice sounds like their heart is breaking. I cry, readily at moments that I succumb to the greater beauty, or fear or just the overwhelming circumstance. I would rather be in rural Ireland staring out across the landscape. Sometimes, I imagine that I am. I abhor when people say my full name incorrectly, even though it’s just the difference between rushing the name out of their mouth or taking their time.

I enjoy intimate spaces. My apartment is welcoming, with a distinct feeling that is is not just a room, it is a home. I give myself and my possessions to the people I love. I have been hurt more often than not because of this. I always sample the food I make before I let anyone else taste it. I cook emotionally. Because of what a wonderful mother my mother is, I cannot wait to have that same affect on my future children. I am overly sensitive. I am extremely romantic. I get scared of things, and usually decline politely if I am uncomfortable with situations. If a polite decline doesn’t work, I am able to stand up. I have been bullied, I have let it affect me. Then, I move forward.

I love the softness of dog’s ears, and the swish of a cat’s tail against hardwood floors. I love flowers arranged to look chaotically beautiful. I like the way basil leaves leave their scent on your fingers. I prefer to be photographed in black and white. I wore braces for 2 years, and now I don’t wear my retainer and my front teeth have shifted. I worry at times that this bothers my mother. I know it bothers my sister. 

After 30 years my dad is clean shaven and it is a shock, and it worries me that he sees the shock each time I see him. I am very much like my father, as I share my adult fears and problems with him, and he shares his worries with me, I see how similar we are. 

I enjoy pressing paper fresh from the copier against my cheek. I enjoy bending back the first pages of a new book, and running my finger down the page to settle into a read. I despise ball point pens. I enjoy felt tipped black pens instead. 

I purge with my writing. If the day has been long, or short. If my heart is heavy, if it is light. I work out my words, to find out how I feel. 

(Source: thatkindofwoman)

thatkindofwoman:

I will hold your hand.
Maybe the first night we meet in a quick and firm handshake.
Or years and years later when we walk down a familiar street.
Maybe in the back of a cab in the Lower East Side.
The aisles of the old antique shops,
trying to stay connected even though our path narrows.
 I will hold your hand each night.
Gazing at its skin, casing your muscle and bone.
I will know the rough calluses you got from years of routine.
I will memorize the knuckles and document them in my memory. 
I will hold your hand in foreign lands.
I will squeeze tightly to reassure you. Too tell you. I love you.
I will hold your hand when you meet my family.
I will loosely entangle my digits betwixt yours. Lazy hand swinging.
I will clutch your hand in the warm, windproof pockets of your winter coat.
I will hold your hand when we walk museums, or libraries. 
Maybe I will tie us together with knotted fingers. 
I just know, I will hold your hand.

bringing this back…

I like men in dark denim jeans, that hang low in a casual way around their hips.
I like the films that make tears spring to my eyes so that I only notice them when the salty taste of them reaches my lips.
I like scrubbing the dirt from under my fingernails when I get home.
I like when the hem of my dress caresses my legs, flirting with me.
I like the way my hands look when I talk excitedly about something.
I like my bottom lip, and how it collects the dewy left overs of a drink I just took.
I like walking through crowds of people on crowded New York Streets, alone not held down to someone ele’s pace.
I like the dip and float of my stomach if I take a hill too fast in my car.
I like the sound my fingers make when I rap them against the counter at work.
I like the soft light of my phone’s screen as I rapidly text my thoughts to a suitor.
I like the fresh burst of the cherry tomatoes that my mother grows, as I greedily pick and plop them into my mouth.  
I like the wonder and ache in my heart when I hear a song that makes me listen harder.
I like the inspirations that seep into my brain, after exhaustion and sadness have haunted it.

(Source: thatkindofwoman)

I suppose if it were possible an artist could take a pen and gently sketch the lines of our bodies. The curvature could be represented by a meandering instrument. Mayhap, they capture the moment when your body’s grooves assemble against mine. Blurred lines sketch the messy passion in which we intersect. Sharp strokes of the felt tip will take our shapes prisoner. Imprisoned in a moment of ardor we will forever be those two forms  made rigid by observation. 

However, why would we want anyone to capture us in those moments, a you and a me becoming an us. Kept secret. Away from the curious and cataloging eyes of artists. I will paint us. our forms, figures. I will paint us with symbols that signify words.  I will paint us in the moments my lips meet yours and our language is spoken. And you will move the symbols and figures to suit us both, a duet of art. 

Who am I to you, as a whole? Or as a part. Partially captured by the gazes of others, until a pieces is made to match. 

(Source: thatkindofwoman)

I am here
skin soft
lips parted
eyes bright.

I am here
fingers flexing
head tilted
legs crossed.

(Source: thatkindofwoman)

It’s a bad ritual.

We’d collect
our thoughts
together
for the week and
find scraps of used paper,
receipts,
napkins
and litter

We’d write down
what we couldn’t say to others
polite etiquette
dampening our palettes
readying us for courtesy

Don’t tell them no
say no thank you.

Don’t be impolite
it’s just not becoming.

Written notes
on the things
we’d wished
we could have said

Wished we could
have delivered our witty
remarks
directly to
the source
of our intentions

Saunter up to them
indifferent to the social
niceties
that made custom
customary

Instead
collected
we’d find 
a place to burn
the words put on paper

Compassionate to the 
thoughts and feelings
of others
but
not ourselves 

 *I’m no poet. 

(Source: thatkindofwoman)

At the age of 6 I fancied myself in love with the boy next door. He was everything a 6-year-old tomboy could desire, and he happened to be my best friend. Day and night we would run through the streets like a gang of little beasts. Scuffed sneakers, scraped knees and chipped teeth. I was all limbs, tall for my age and shy around people I didn’t know. But what I knew more than anything, more than I knew about the power rangers, that I was in love with him. For the sake of the secrecy of young one-sided love I will change his name. Tyler. He was a treasured member of my family and thought at one point he would become my dad’s successor. Of course we all thought at that age that my dad was a secret agent. And what boy didn’t want to be an agent, much less a secret one. 

So, I spent the young days of my youth scampering after the boys of the neighborhood, trying to prove my worth. Much to the pride of my brother I was always willing to try something he would tempt me with. “Here, Coco, sit on this sled.” Ethan would shove me down the snow-covered hill. Coco, my nickname as a kid and what I currently am marked under on my parent’s cell phone, actually specifically Coco Bird. 

I remember the games. Spider. Oh Spider, the game that beat all the rest. All the kids in the 3-block radius would come to our house, and the big field across the less than bustling street. Ethan and Tyler’s older brother, Tom would hold court over us all. We would hush as they stood on the steps of the front porch. “The rules of Spider…” Ethan would start… I would be scared, because it was a game that flooded a child with fear, excitement and worth.

One person would hide. Everyone else would get on the porch and count. After 100 we all would go hunt for the “spider”. If Ethan wasn’t hiding I was close behind him, we would all search for the hidden spider and if anyone caught sight of him they would sprint for their lives back to the porch yelling at the top of their lungs “Spider!” Everyone then hearing it would sprint, screaming “SPIDER!” back for the porch. The poor sucker who was tagged was the next spider. 

It was the best game to play with a block of kids and the dusk of night setting in. Then Mom would shoo some kids home, other inside and dinner was ready. 

Now dinner with my mom, that is something that I could never forget. Learning to cook with my mother is another story completely.

I still fancied myself in love with Tyler a year later when my parents put the house up for sale. I was still in love with him when I was living on a farm 25 miles away. I still was in love with him when I was 13 and saw him at basketball camps and games. 

And finally I still loved him when I was 21 and saw him across the bar just a mile from where we both grew up next to each other. But I realized, I wasn’t in love with him, I barely knew him. I loved the 7 year old my 6-year-old self fell for, and that a part of me always would crave to have him grab my hand and drag me back to my parent’s porch as someone yelled “SPIIIIIIIIIIDDDDDEEEEEERRRR.”

(Source: thatkindofwoman)