Breaking in the Birkenstocks

My Birkenstocks arrived on Thursday. I had ordered Milano sandals online, and yesterday afternoon I decided to break them in. I decided to walk down to Watertown Square and back. These were my first pair of Birkenstocks ever. I had tried on a pair at a store recently, with those weird little nylon footie things that the shoe store requires you to wear when trying on shoes with no socks on. Doing a brief jaunt around the stack of shoes didn't prepare me for the pain I would soon suffer late last night.

The trek to Watertown Square was OK. It took me a while to get used to the fit: It's basically a flat sole with a cork top. I doubt that anyone with flat feet would be able to wear something like this, as the cork curves up where the arch of your feet are, which is an unpleasant feeling: Not until now has the arch of my foot needed to press against anything. The website where I bought it says it has a shock-absorbing EVA sole. I'm not sure what EVA stands for (as I was sold on the shock-absorbing part), but it probably means the sole is an Extra Vigilant Annoyance. Every time I took a step it felt like I was bouncing, with the reverberations going up my legs.

I walked down to the New York Diner, where I've had many late-night breakfasts, and tightened up the straps. The walk back home was better, I thought, because in that direction the ground has a slight incline. So, while walking downhill to the square I felt as if my toes were not touching the cork surface at all, going on an incline had the opposite effect. I could feel my toes push into the cork with each step, and that made it more satisfying. The bouncing and reverberations were gone. I had heard that the cork eventually molds itself to the feet it's supporting, so all the griping aside, I had high hopes for my new sandals.

I found that walk to be a good exercise, so I treated myself to a fudge popsicle when I got home.

Later that night, around 11:30pm, I had to get out of the house to clear my head. I actually have been doing a lot of walking lately. Not every day, not marathon distances, but healthy doses nonetheless. And it's a lot for me, as I'm not the athletic type. Sometimes I clear my head, sometimes not. Last night's was a wash.

In the past, I walked to Watertown Square a bunch of times. A week after I broke up (on my birthday) with an ex last October, I walked six miles, basically walking to the Cambridge border then hugging the Watertown/Belmont line until hooking around the Square and returning home. When I saw my family earlier this month, I decided to step away and take a walk. An hour-and-a-half into it, after finally turning around, a worried sister called, wondering where I was and if I was all right. I was fine; when I got back three hours after I left, I learned I had done eight miles. Last month I found out about bike paths around Fresh Pond in Cambridge. Early morning on Memorial Day, I walked there and did three loops around the pond, and then back home. That trek, with an hour resting with a book, took four hours and eight miles total. Fresh Pond seems to have become my favorite place, as I've gone there to walk more than a handful of times since.

I admit that in all of those walks I had to clear my head from "residual relationship thoughts" (or RRT). And last night was no different. I decided not to go to Fresh Pond yet another time, but to take a different route. I decided to walk to Harvard Square.

It was late, and there were hardly any life signs at all in Watertown. I passed by a rabbit, probably a wild one, on the intersection of Fresh Pond Parkway and Mt. Auburn Street. Finally, 45 minutes after I started, I arrived at Harvard Square, which was teeming with life: dressed-up preppie college kids, one or two homeless people and a few drunks. Here I was with my water bottle, shorts, a slightly sweaty undershirt and my brand new Birkenstocks. At least I wasn't wearing my Sketchers and white quarter crews like I had done before. I was surprised to find that many restaurants were open; it goes to show that I haven't really gone out much for other than tango in the near-year that I've lived around here.

I continued up Mt. Auburn and made my way to Arrow Street, via Bow Street. At Zero Arrow Theatre, where Arrow Street intersects with Mass. Ave., and where last year's Boston Tango Festival was held, I circled around the Square and then took a shortcut back home via Brattle Street. (Looking at a map now, I realize that is actually quite a longer way to get back home.)

At that point my Birkenstocks were killing me. The support under my arches were pressing into my feet. The straps dug into my skin. Pepples and sand left on the sidewalks from last winter had flown into the crevices, poking into the ball of my foot. I finally stopped to take off one sandal to brush away the debris, noticed a tiny new blister, and I moved on.

I saw another rabbit on the intersection with Sparks Street, and wondered if it was the same one as before. I crossed the Craigie Street turn and stopped to look at it. The brown bunny had stopped, too, and it appeared to be evaluating me, too. Then it turned, waited for traffic to pass by, and dotted across Brattle into a wooded area on the other side. Life goes on.

I couldn't help but realize, even as I was walking at 1am this morning, that it had become a symbolic journey. Although it was an ex who suggested getting Birkenstocks (it will help with posture, etc.), it didn't matter, as I was enjoying the fact I was wearing sandals again. For whatever reason, I hadn't worn sandals since I was a kid. And despite that, apparently, wearing Birkenstocks will be painful for a while as I get used to the new feelings, I just need to plod through and get used to it. As much as the feet felt the brunt of the new sensations, most of the pain was in my head anyway. I can move past that. A new day is coming.

As I was writing the end of this, Paolo Nutini started playing in my mind.

Hey, I put some new shoes on,
And suddenly everything is right,
...
And I made my way to the kitchen,
But I had to stop from the shock of what I found,
A room full of all of my friends dancing round and round,
And I thought hello new shoes,
Bye bye them blues.

Life will be fine, eventually. Just gotta walk it off, so to speak. Stone to stone, I'll take it on.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines

I intend not to clutter this blog with relationship woes, other than now to say it has been a hard two weeks for me.

Before last week, I thought I had moved on. We were doing the friends thing, and everything was fine. I had even bought a book of poems, Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda, after I heard a female friend say that reading Neruda made her weak in the knees. What a nice way to woo the next woman in my life, by reading her poetry, I thought. (I know, call me old-fashioned.)

Of the 20 poems, I was struck by the title of the penultimate entry, "Tonight I Can Write." As writing had just returned in my life, I chose to read that one first. I was standing in my bedroom, and as I read the poem on the page, I thought, huh, that was pretty good. I mindlessly flipped the page and realized I had only read the first half. And as I finished, a feeling of despair came over me.

I had to sit down. Apparently not only were my own knees weak, my whole body ached (a feeling that has yet to subside) as I was taken by surprise how accurately Neruda's feelings matched my own.

I longed for the love of my life, someone who had been with me every day, whether by my side or on the phone, for the better part of a year. And now she is not. And now she may be with someone else, as she has moved on. Henceforth I can call her only my first love, nothing more. Maybe someday I will be at peace with that, but today is not that day.

For now, here is the poem that has better captured how I feel.

Tonight I Can Write
by Pablo Neruda

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

Thank you for indulging me. I hope the last line of the poem will ring true for me.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Tomorrow, or hopefully soon, I can move on.

The revenge of the mysterious green plate monster

The following is an exercise in writing fiction that I did at a Grub Street workshop this month. That day was the first time I had written fiction in years, and to be honest, this is more like an embellished "based on a true story." Actually, a lot of what I wrote that day was not really fiction. I felt rusty and out of practice. I did not read this out loud to the class, but I let my friend read it soon after and she loved it. Hopefully, it's not only because it's about her. Please comment if you wish.

She was excited to eat at this vegetarian restaurant, and as I was tasting the edamame for the first time, and the rubbery blocks of tofu squishing between my teeth, I asked myself, what had I gotten myself into?

I wanted to impress her by being adventurous, but being a meat-and-potatoes and sometimes-junk-food kind of guy, this felt more like I was jumping off a cliff and reaching for anything resembling food. I suppose I did grab a branch or something, because the next foreign object I had cautiously put in my mouth had all the flavor and texture of a twig.

I toyed with the generous pile of green leaves on my plate. It wasn’t lettuce or kale, but it was stringy, sticking to each other and the cubes of tofu and chick peas. I picked at the green monster, imagining myself as the little kid in the Calvin & Hobbes comic strip, in which his food comes to life and begins to orate the Hamlet soliloquy. I start wrapping the sticky, stringy green mess around my fork like I do with spaghetti. I held it up to my nose and steal a whiff. I was hoping for some redemption, some essence of hope that perhaps it only LOOKED horrible and that the smell would offer a hint of delectable bliss that I had yet to encounter. Instead, it was a neutral-to-pale scent that conjured up images of steamed broccoli and my laundry basket. I sighed, and looked at the rest of my plate. Eyes of quinoa were staring at me, pleading with me to run away and take them with me.

I had no option but to taste it. I stuffed it into my mouth and squirmed. I closed my eyes until it was successfully down the hatch.

I looked at her. She was all smiles and looked content. She looked at me, rolled her eyes and pointed her fork at her plate of the same concoction.

“This,” she said, “is the best I’ve ever had. I’m really glad we chose this place.”

Hmm, I said, and poked my finger into the tofu. It bounced back.

Opening the glass jar

I wish I could capture my thoughts.

A writer usually finds a way to do this effectively. There is always a pad of paper and a pen nearby. A notebook is always in the back pocket or in the glove compartment. Microsoft Word is always on standby. A budding writer has the tools, but they are only as good as his ability to capture his thoughts.

My thoughts are always fleeting. Today I am writing longhand in my journal. Writing longhand is tough because it forces you to pay attention to the thoughts in your head. You allow the thoughts to play out on your mind's stage, and you watch this performance and interpret it before you know what it is exactly you are witnessing. You report on these events as you see them. But not only are you the reporter, you are the editor, you are the columnist, interpreting what is in your head and writing down what makes sense.

I've been writing a lot in my journal lately. In addition to a breakup of a relationship, I have grown a lot in the last year and face many challenges in the future. That is a lot to think about, and sometimes it comes at me all at once, and I can't make heads or tails of it. Today I seem to be making progress in jotting these thoughts down. But then it was lunchtime, and I had to eat.

I made myself a sandwich and while eating, I continued thinking about my journal entry. What would be the next paragraph, what would come after that, etc. I want this journal entry to make sense, I want it to show that my head is not simply a glass jar filled with fireflies buzzing around inside. But the ideas kept buzzing by and within a couple of seconds, they were gone. I have a general idea where I want to go with it, but it would be great if I could capture my thoughts and pin them on the clothesline.

So that's when it hit me. "I wish I could capture my thoughts." What a great opening line to jump into a blog. I've been wanting to start a blog for a year or more now, and more so within the last month when the writing bug bit me. I had thought of another way to start it off, by quoting Pablo Neruda of all people, but I suppose my hesitation illustrated my uneasiness with that idea. Maybe it will work as a future post. Be on the lookout for it.

So here it is. My first blog post. I decided to call this blog "Dank Thoughts" on a whim, but it works for a number of reasons. First, "Dank" was one of many nicknames I have had. Second, although I actually didn't care for that nickname, it seems to work here on a more literal level. These thoughts are coming from the recesses of my mind. People may be surprised by what I think. It is my hope, then, that I can capture them, not only to help me figure things out along the way, but also maybe to show that I'm just as human as anyone else.

OK, back to writing my journal entry.