"But stop what? Maybe just growing up."

I always feel so perpetually melancholy. I don't think it's bad, though - the feelings are a mixture of nostalgia and realizing that the present moment, especially when it's particularly happy, is being transformed into a memory just as quickly as it's happening.

Maybe it's because my life has been so full of changes lately. And Hallie and I do stop so often to reflect on how wonderful our lives have been these days. We always say our 10th grade selves would be horribly jealous of who we are now, and I've never heard anything more true. It's just that sometimes being overly sentimental means every joyful moment is thinned by a tiny pinch of gloom. And time just moves so quickly. And I want to capture everything. And I don't want the good days to keep ending.

All I know is that no matter how old I get, I never stop being afraid of getting older.

The day my family took a boat ride to heaven (and got really, really sunburned):

9/11

September 11th, 2001 is no doubt one of the most significant events any of us will ever live through, but I was so young when it happened - only nine. I feel like I'm constantly trying to catch up. To understand what happened, why every person put a flag on their front porch. To mourn with every American who felt sadness on that day, no matter how late I may be. I always feel guilt when I remember how my heart didn't ache when my mama and I stood in front of our television set and watched the planes crash over and over again.

Every following year on the "anniversary of 9/11" - as people on the news still love calling it, us students were required to write a paper - sometimes just a paragraph - on where we were when we learned about September 11th. I never knew what to tell the teachers, though, so my papers were either blank or fabricated. That's because my memories are shadowy at best - I remember the faces of my teachers crying, their whispers, seeing the smoke, the bus ride home, wondering if my grandpa was okay, and hoping my trip to the Stokes County Fair that night wouldn't be cancelled. And how do you tell that to a teacher in a paper? "On September 11th, 2001, I worried most about getting the cotton candy my mama promised me." I was only in Fourth grade, mind you. But still.

Now I mostly remember the sunshine of the day, how it warmed everything. How the school year was still so new, my clothes were so new - how everything in September always feels so new. But then the black smoke came through and tainted everything, and I never really understood. Sometimes I still don't understand. After September 11th life was narrated by a string of overly-patriotic country songs. And fear. Complaints about airport security. What were you doing when it happened? The flags. The God Bless Americas. What ever happened to September 10th? Our country looked like a perpetual Fourth of July. And time went by, drawn by slow horses.

And that was then. These days I feel like I'm constantly having delayed reactions to September 11th. Last year the day fell on a Saturday, and I wrote this in my journal: "How can life still go on today? How can my daddy be at the dump right now, and how can my mother be waddling through the kitchen looking for bubble wrap? I feel like this should be the only thing on anyone’s mind. Death and planes and buildings are terrible things to fill a Saturday with."

Even though it was sunny, I stayed in bed all day that day listening to Chris Garneau's song "Saturday," which very appropriately mentions the stopping of time. It was like I was finally reacting to what had happened ten years ago. Ten years. I also wrote: "I feel like the whole world should be required to stop today. I don’t feel like anyone should be able to function on the anniversary of 9/11. Maybe because it seems to be all anyone has talked about for so long. Maybe because it truly was awful, and I was too young for my heart to ache when it actually happened, when the world really did stop." And I felt the same thing earlier today when I stumbled across Jon Stewart's reactions to the events on the internet.

But even now I'm not sure if I'm reacting to what really happened or if I'm only reacting to reactions. I can understand - but I can only understand objectively. I'll never know what it felt like to hear the news for the first time - or rather, to hear the news and understand for the first time. My memories are still mere shadows, faces, and facts. Somedays I wish I could just go back in time and be older, wiser. And not in Fourth grade. Maybe then September 11th would mean what it's supposed to mean to me.

Things that are Nice

My parents have never had very much money, and I think that's one of my favorite things about belonging to this family. That's because when there isn't much money, everything instantly becomes more meaningful. Trips to the library when I was little, gadgets from my eye doctor's toy box, clothes that weren't from yardsales, books from the book fair at school. I always got to pick out one toy - but only one toy - on all of our Wal-Mart trips. I also think it's due to my family's lack of money that I've always imagined the smallest places to be the happiest. Little wooden cottages seem most appealing. Places filled with only the things we need and maybe a select few, very-loved extras.

F. Scott Fitzgerald describes exactly what I'm talking about in The Ice Palace:

It was a large room with a Madonna over the fireplace and rows upon rows of books in covers of light gold and dark gold and shiny red. All the chairs had little lace squares where one's head should rest, the couch was just comfortable, the books looked as if they had been read-- some-- and Sally Carrol had an instantaneous vision of the battered old library at home, with her father's huge medical books, and the oil-paintings of her three great-uncles, and the old couch that had been mended up for forty-five years and was still luxurious to dream in. This room struck her as being neither attractive nor particularly otherwise. It was simply a room with a lot of fairly expensive things in it that all looked about fifteen years old.

The nice thing isn't the poverty, though; it's the simplicity. The joy of knowing everything you own has some sort of story. That it means something.

All I want is a tiny house filled with meaningful things and meaningful people.

Things that are nice

I just want to take a minute to say how much I love the Young Democrats of Surry County. I've spent a lot of the last two days with them (minus a few Young Dems who were dearly missed) at the park playing games, grilling hot dogs, wading in rivers, and feeling at home. I remember Hallie and I used to always complain about the laziness and apathy of our generation when we learned about how much younger generations have done in the past - we felt like there was never any way to be involved with service projects or political activism in our little town. But having the Young Dems solves both of those problems, and it's just so nice. It's so nice to be around people who explode at the sound of sexist ideologies - people who sincerely care about plastic bottles being recycled. Out of all the groups of best friends I've had in the past, this group is my absolute favorite. This is cheesy, but I'm just so thankful for all the wonderful people I've met and/or grown closer to through the Democratic Party of Surry County.

Things that are nice

Even though Micah and I always complain about how few pictures we have together, and even though I agree entirely that we need more, it's kind of nice only relying on memories to recall certain days and events spent with him. They're much more dreamy that way, more sentimental. Tonight I keep thinking about the evening we went to thrift stores to look for books in a town that was sort of far away from Akron. We were in Baby Blue and Micah was listening to Neil Young's On the Beach. The sun was setting; our windows were down; we had new bags of books; I remember driving by a lake. Micah was telling me memories he had that involved the town we were leaving, and I remember loving every second of them. I didn't take any pictures that evening, but that's okay. It's perfect in my mind and now, right here.

I usually hate the beach. I hate the houses and their silly signs with silly sayings; I hate how they all look the same save the color and the phrase. I hate the sand, the heat, and the gift shops. I hate the rebel flag keychains, trinkets that glow in the dark, the three-week tattoos, and the 5.99 t-shirts.

Plus the beach has always reminded me of parents, of adults and control. A lack of freedom. Someone yelling to not go in too deep because of rip-currents, because the ocean will take us away and never give us back. The beach also reminds me of a parent who's afraid of sharks and jellyfish, of sea creatures in general and us losing our toes or legs to them.

But these things have never happened despite how deeply we've ventured out into the ocean. Sometimes we've swam far past the point of breaking waves, leaving a frantic grown up at the shore to yell, and it seems we still have all our limbs, and we're still on land; we're not floating out in the Atlantic somewhere. The warnings of adults have always seemed nonsensical to us kids. We see the ocean as it's portrayed in an episode of Spongebob, friendly and explorable. They see the ocean as if it were a watery monster - angry and waiting for us to slip.

Despite these differences, however, several moments of my beach trips are always much more pleasant than others. In my most recent trip, most of my favorite memories involve the evening the adults let us kids walk the 10-minute walk to the ocean without any of them coming along.

Nothing incredible happened on this trip; it was actually pretty normal. I had to get onto Ashton and Justin for talking too loudly and walking through people's front yards on the way there, and we ranted and complained about how strict our family is. But it was also in those first few moments that I realized how much I enjoyed having two other young people on the trip with me, even if they did come with an extra adult.

When we got to the ocean, it was almost sunset, but it had been rainy that day. Walking on the beach was like pushing through a misty dream. A collage of sea glass and broken shells clanked below our feet as we walked and looked for shark teeth. The sky was purple - a blueish tint, and the clouds were literally lined with silver from the sun. People were animated silhouettes in the light, at least until you approached them. Then they became friendly and detailed.

I thought of Bob Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man - "to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free, silhouetted by the sea," and remembered that Micah was obsessed with that song when I first met him. He always told me it was the perfect illustration of freedom, and now that I think about it, those few moments on the beach with Ashton and Justin were, too.

As we walked on, discussing how much time we'd have to explore, I noticed a dog running into the water chasing a frisby. With the splashing of the water and magic of the day, he looked like a chariot driving into the clouds. At one point I compared the ocean to a Heaven where profanities were not prohibited - after writing my name I turned around and realized my nephews had written several of them into the sand, and they were never sent away or expelled from the sea. They never even had to seek forgiveness.

Sadly, though, we had to cut our exploring short because the tide was coming in. We watched as the water swallowed the shore in tiny gulps, until it had nearly reached the steps, ready to drink our shoes, too. We got to them just in time.

I didn't think about it until now, but that particular trip to the ocean played out as if a writer of magical realism had sprinkled magic all over the realism that is Topsail Island, North Carolina (and most other beaches). A dog turned divine; the clouds turned silver; the remnants of death and aging turned to art beneath our feet. I didn't even mind the houses lining the shore - they, too, looked magical in the natural lighting of the evening.

And I think that's why Magical Realism will always be one of my favorite literary genres and if it's okay to say so, philosophies. It doesn't avoid the truth or create a fantasy - it simply adds beauty and magic to what's already there. Did my experience change the fact that people feel the need to put disgusting houses all over what should be considered nature's territory? No, but it made them a lot more enjoyable to be around.

But the magical realism of real life can be created by more than just sunsets and weather. It can be a scientific discovery (Richard Dawkins refers to science as "the poetry of reality," and I've always liked that). It can be the way the world looks when you're tired and everything is funny. It can be the presence of someone you really, really love. And it can even be a certain mindset. These are the things that make an experience transcendent and life meaningful. And the very best thing about magical realism (which, in this case, was nature itself) is its ability to create a new world without ever leaving the old one. The magic only adds -- it never takes away.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Love

One year ago at this time a tiny blue car (who goes by the name of "Baby Blue," if you were wondering) was traveling through the mountains on the way to my house. And I was terrified. I remember being so scared, in fact, that I played Paul Simon's "Graceland" over and over again on a little tape player I kept beside my bed. That was my favorite break-up song, and I wanted to mentally prepare myself for the worst. I kept listening so I would know what it feels like to lose love, to have a window in your heart. I knew it would happen, and I wanted to be ready.

That night the power went out. I was worried about how Micah would find my house before, but now even more worried about how he would find it without the porch light. That was the end of my Paul Simon listening. I sat on the bed I made for the first time this year and practiced the apology I would make when Micah finally got here and realized he'd made a huge mistake. There were a few candles burning beside me, and my belly was full of bumblebees. I hadn't seen Micah in over a year; he was on his way to my house, and I was in a room with no power, feeling scared and in love. A few hours later I got a phone call from Micah saying he had reached the North Carolina state line.

I met him at the local McDonalds that evening, much to my mother's dismay (it was well after midnight when he finally arrived), and we rode to my house together. My belly was still full of bumblebees. The only thing I remember about our conversation is Micah saying, "my hands are sweaty, so I can't really go in for a hand-hold," and I remember thinking that I'd never wanted to hold a hand more than his, no matter how sweaty.

When we got to my house we carried his things in and put them in my room; it was finally a mess again and felt like home. Micah hugged me and all my bumblebees went away. The rest felt like a dream. We spent that night talking and laughing and hugging, and I realized I wasn't going to lose love after all - not that night, at least. The power blinked on and off and we heard musical flashes of Paul Simon's Graceland on the tape player beside my bed. This carried on until morning, until my mom warned me that my father would be waking up for work soon. And that was the first of many all-nighters I would spend with him, in person or in conversation, realizing that I didn't have to be so afraid of losing his love after all.

I've learned a lot this year. That Micah likes to sing in his car when he drives, especially if it's Kanye. That it's hard for us to talk about what it's like to live in the south in a civilized manner. That Micah finds monkey vaginas extremely funny when they're on television and he's tired. That I can never talk about Hitler's perhaps-unstable mental state in a serious manner because that lets him off the hook.

The most important thing I've learned, though, is that it's always important to have faith. More and more these days I find myself wanting to completely forget that I'd ever believed in a God; I want to try to give up the search and continue to re-shape my life without religion. But Micah never let's that happen, and I'm so grateful. Whenever I'm feeling desperate I tell him it's impossible for me to have faith, that I'm literally incapable of it, and he says, "Tracie, every single thing you do requires faith," and I remember that I only need to practice more.

Most of my favorite memories with Micah are simple: sitting on the kitchen floor after church, drives in the middle of the night when we're all bundled up, kisses at stop lights, visiting book stores, spending an evening making silly voices and laughing, reading together on his bed. When I think about this a quote comes to mind. I don't actually know who said it, but it goes - "Whether you're skydiving together or sitting at home and doing different things, it's always comfortable. That is fucking love." And I am always comfortable with Micah, and happy, too, and I don't really know what could be better than that.

Sometimes I feel sorry for myself for being in love with someone who lives 9 hours away, but then I realize how lucky I am t0 be in love and more than that, to be in love with the person I'm in love with. Micah is someone I take for granted far too often - someone who reads "How We Decide" so he can talk to me about neuroscience, who tells me there's nobody else he'd rather share a meal with. Micah is a constant source of motivation and inspiration to me. He makes me feel pretty and even though it's cliche to say so, complete.

I've always thought people were silly for saying a person is all they ever think about, but now I understand what they mean. I can see a peach in a grocery store and think of Micah, and pomegranates are even worse. My mind is never safe - a picture of a president, a love poem, a certain highway we've traveled on together (that chances are, I've gotten us lost on). He introduced me to the music I like the most and we've watched more movies together than I can keep up with. I wake up every morning and talk to him all day, and I wouldn't change that one bit.

But this isn't to say that everything is perfect - we fight and love with equal amounts of passion. Micah's far too honest to tell me exactly what I want to hear at my command, and even though it makes me mad in the heat of the moment, I've always found that so endearing. He hates when I tickle him, and I hate when he gets sleepy too early (even though I know this comparison is hardly fair - a desire to tickle can be suppressed much easier than the desire to sleep). But the thing is, after an argument, I realize I have exactly what I've always wanted: someone who is honest - someone I can trust entirely and therefore, love freely.

And that is what I talk about the most when I talk about love, when I talk about Micah: freedom. The freedom to sit on the kitchen floor on Sunday afternoon and talk, the freedom to tickle (even though I know it will make him mad), and the freedom to love without holding anything at all back. Whether my belly is full of bumblebees or I'm crying on the phone to him after a silly argument, I know he will bring me comfort. And to me, that is exactly what love is all about. The associations, the memories, the motivation, and the freedom.

It might be silly and sappy to say so, but I'm so thankful I can be best friends with the boy I'm in love with.