Cara Comma

Looking around my room after my eyes adjust to the dim light provided by the pink-orange streetlights, I find my mind wandering more than my weary eyes. With much of my time consumed by the monotony of day to day life, this is the little bit of time I have to myself. Here, in the dark room with shadows as my only company, is where I am myself with no context. The rest of the time I am Cara comma. At work I am Cara, the girl from the coffee shop. Sometimes, even after a year I am still the girl from the video store. At school, the WheatBread girl or "that writer." In social situations: Katie's friend, Nicole's roommate or "wasn't she with that guy?". Once, asked 'what I did' (and isn't that a funny question, as though there were a one word answer that could stuff my whole life into a tiny little nutshell), I responded "I wear many hats... that's all I do."
Sometimes it seems that way, as the time flies by and I morph seamlessly from coffee girl to student to mentor to basketcase, it seems there isn't enough time to be any one thing well. It is this rapid passage of time that takes the joy away from the little things, that turns you into one of them: the whiny unsatisfied worker ants. Worse yet, turns you into a drone, a going through the motions machine. I decided a long time ago that I refuse to let that happen to me. I decided more recently that it had.
Sitting down to write out something important to me, I found myself grasping at straws, being afraid to attach that much importance to any one thing. Somewhere in that battle with myself, I found that I wasn't sure what was important to me anymore. In fact, I wasn't sure that anything was. To have lost all optimism at 21, what a thought. In realizing this, that the jaded cynicism of a 17-year-old had my mind in its clutch and I was just too busy to notice it, I decided to make a concerted effort to remember when I had last let myself dwell in a moment of simple, unadulterated pleasure. It is, after all, those moments that make the tedium of necessity worth the hassle. As Ethan Hawke says, in Reality Bites, "so I take pleasure in the little things."
The little things... I began to ponder what my little things were. As Mr. and Mrs. Poulain in Jeunet's Amelie, I very much enjoy the art of reorganization. The hours that follow a good room cleaning are always among my most productive. These every day occurances, seemingly mundane, should be taken for what they are. For that little bit of magic that makes you say "so what" to not knowing what it's all about.
It is always amazing how much the sting of a hot coffee at six-thirty in the morning can take the edge of off pre-dawn wake up calls. I sometimes have the opportunity, just as the sun is beginning its ascent from horizon to horizon, to step outside and take in a bit of the morning air. My fingers, stinging from the cold in the early morning breeze, are unable to grasp anything for a few moments. It is the kind pain that, as a child would have brought me to the fetal position, but that now is strangely comforting—a reminder that feelings can be felt. Taking a drag of my freshly lit cigarette, the hot coffee coats my throat, and the smoke slithers easily in and then out of my lungs. There are no hurried phone calls or demanding customers and I am able to indulge in my own self-destruction.
It is easy, in routine, to forget the good things. For eight hours the same faces pass by: The woman who is always late, but is picky anyway: bucket of French Roast, double cupped (make sure the seams line up). Then there’s the guy who will be back in an hour for another coffee, at which point it will be waiting for him on the counter, motivated slightly by the consistent dollar tip he leaves, but also by the amusement we get from his love of AC/DC, and his insistence that headphones are an efficient weather-proofing device; The acquaintance I don’t remember who swears we were at the same party last weekend (the details of his face escape me now), the dark eyed young man who, despite his love of flavored coffee with lots of cream makes at least an hour of my shift worth the two minute casual exchange that he supplies to pepper my day with aesthetic pleasure. In this haze, the only way I can tell apart one day from the other is the amount of time that can be spent looking longingly at my bed as I gather my things to make the trip to class. My only escape is those infrequent moments that punctuate my day. In these moments I ignore the passing people and the pressure of daily life. Inhaling, I feel my tense arms loosen at my sides, as though the smoke is spreading to the very tips of my body.
Walking through the park on a misty day, pausing atop the bridge and watching the ducks swim below, I take a pause. The sky is a thinly grayed blue and the chill in the air is easily thwarted by a sweatshirt. The center of the park is far enough from the street that there is an illusion of aloneness from the civilized world of streetlights and honking horns. I can hear myself think, and though the words I sketch out onto the blank sheet in the back of my mind will invariably disappear regardless of how many times I repeat them, there is a comfort to be felt in being alone with those words. In these moments- the little things that I so take pleasure in- it is hard to understand how I ever get frustrated with life. I kick myself for ever letting a sleepless night, or a boring class curse the human condition. For what beauty there is around us, just waiting to be gobbled up by all of our senses.
No museum, coffeehouse, studio, or theatre need bring us these things, either. Easily, we romanticize things found in these packages. I, myself am eternally guilty of this. When I hold a martini glass I think of Dorothy Parker and New York City literary roundtables. I think of a time when celebrity was sometimes the same as intellectual, but not a replacement for it. When I enter a dark smoky bar, I picture Bob Dylan in the corner repairing a snapped e-string. These are the images that haunt my mind's landscape. These are interchangeable though, and sometimes it is Joey Ramone or Janis Joplin and a bottle of whiskey.
This is historical envy, a decision made by society long ago that flowers in poetry are prettier than flowers in gardens. It is the sensibility that tells us that no film can ever be as good as Citizen Kane, no symphony like a Mozart. This sensibility freezes us in our tracks, makes us give up hope of any lasting achievement, has created generations of cynics. It has made us forget that these little things can be anything, anywhere. They can be the things that punctuate our mundanity with elation. A good song that can steal part of your soul, sometimes just for a moment. The same way that a good movie can, at its credits leave you feeling exhausted and exhilarated all at the same time; like an adventure, a new home, or great sex. When it fits just right, someone else's words and voice can capture exactly what you're feeling, thinking, and not being able to say on your own. Sitting stocking-footed on the hardwood floor of an apartment cluttered with artifacts from busier days and taking in a lazy breath of fresh air. Waking up in the morning and finding the coffee pot recently filled with hot coffee, reading a book you loved as a child, remembering a good dream that felt so real it stays with you all day. Little things like these are often overlooked, tossed over the shoulder or stomped on in favor of dwelling on a parking ticket or a long day at work.
Gliding down a road with no one on it and nothing but blinking lights from here to your destination. Being alone with nothing but your thoughts to occupy you, some revolutionary at the moment, others that will fade away by the end of your journey, or shower, or workout, or period between awake and asleep. These alone moments, these me without a context, within myself moments are the ones in which I am most able to decode where my true nature lies. That is when it becomes clear to me what I am at my core. I am a writer. I am an observer, a regurgitator, a craftsman. Rainer Maria Rilke said, in his Letters to a Young Poet "This most of all: ask yourself, in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? And if this answer rings out in asent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple "I must," then build your life in accordance with this necessity." If I were forbidden to write, could I live? If by taking away writing, not only is my pen, paper, keyboard taken away, but also those idle moments in which I am able to scribble on the blank sheet of the back of my mind, then yes is the only answer with which I can reply.
Later in his Letters Rilke says, "If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for the Creator, there is not poverty." Often times, when I have heard enough lament about a city without a culture, of greener grass abroad, I think of this. What right do I have to blame others for what I cannot find in my own life? If ever there is a time when I cannot find a spotting point, a place to focus in order to prevent dizziness, then I have lost my skill.
When the little bile-invoking troubles of the day come up it is the hardest to stay objective. It is in these moments though, that it is most important to reflect on the good little things. It is in those moments before I slip off to sleep that I feel the most alive, the most aware that anything can happen, and the most willing to believe that that is true. Of course we all falter, it is hard not to think about the end of the night, when the morning is broken not by light through the shade, but by the monotone mechanical notes produced by my cell phone. Eventually I am able to move my wandering mind toward happier thoughts, though, and with my handmade heating pad in hand, I settle into the cavernous wonder that is my bed. Surrounded on all sides by pillows, a failing attempt at producing the illusion that I am not alone, I melt into the familiar groove where my body has miraculously left its impression, despite seemingly infrequent visits to the spot. Stretching my feet, and wrapping them by the ankles around the pillow that shortens the length of my bed to better suit my five-foot frame, I edge closer to the pillow that rests against my back. Finally, I pull my teddy bear close to me and rest below it the velvety purple heating pad that, in the months after I made it, exuded the smell of jasmine. With this, and the haunting lull of the subway train, reproduced by my windowsill white noise machine, I pass quietly into the realm within my head. The realm where there is nothing but Cara, and not the anticipation of a box to climb into or a name tag to be worn.