The 17th layer

(Aug. 27, 2010) Jane felt around beneath her; the coarse surface scratched her fingertips. Wherever she was, she hadn’t been here before. She’d explored many areas, but she’d never felt anything like this. As if she were blind, she felt her way. But, her eyes were wide open. Turns out, landing here opened her eyes — they’d been closed the entire time before this.

She had hit rock bottom. Landed, actually, on all fours. She hadn’t landed on her two feet, so crawling seemed to be the next best thing to walking. And being here, she realized that she’d been waiting to land for some time. All along she knew things weren’t going as they should, but it was the fear of hitting, the fear of actually feeling rock bottom’s texture, that kept her forcefully afloat.

There have been so many close calls. So many instances when her parachute probably shouldn’t have opened as she coasted through situations where she should have ended up flailing mid-air like a stray cat falling from a rooftop row home; floated through situations that would have taken others down with her.

There’s a saying that goes something like this: “You can’t save people from themselves. In the end, who they are is going to get them.” Turns out, we might all be running from ourselves; maybe we’re all being hunted down and chased by ourselves. Who we are brings us to our knees, or, in Jane’s particular case, all fours. She finds herself groveling at the foot of the rocky bottom, dry and unforgiving, brittle as coral.

Jane sits at a desk that has existed among generations within her family. Those before her knew this desk to be a different color. Now, layers become this desk and Jane only sees glimmers of the black that once lived a life with nowdeceased relatives of whom Jane holds so dear.

Being at this desk, hoping to bring it back to life, Jane has a thought: maybe we are meant to be altered. This desk has experienced being brand new, being introduced to a new life, felt the excitement and wonderment associated to what lies ahead.

Then BOOM. Tragedy struck. And this lovely and charming desk felt the abrasion that comes with losing its original layer, its base of black paint covered in a flesh-colored hue. Nicks and scratches seep through the new surface, hinting at scars and wounds. Chuck Palahniuck writes in his book ‘Diary,’ “It’s hard to forget pain, but it’s even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness.”

Realizing her place at rock bottom, Jane will never love like she did before. She will never feel alone like this again. She will develop tougher skin, layers that coat her body with experience, wash away her naivety. Jane matches her scars up to comrades, linking a map of her life with the lineage manifested through others’ scars, drawing out the continual zigzag path on which we all wander.

Bozo the Bartender

Someone, somewhere along the way, so wisely touted something like “new friends are each a window to a new world.” And if that’s the case, then Jane has been quite the world traveler within the past few months.

And by ‘world traveler,’ Jane means that she has actually only been to one place for the past consecutive summer months, for 10 hours at a time, six days a week, sometimes even 10 days in a row. Some might call this type of recurrence ‘Groundhog Day,’ and others might call it ‘purgatory.’ But Jane simply smiles and refers to it as an exploration – of the most uncharacteristic kind.

During such exploration, beneath the layer of work, there’s a component in which Jane has found solace; and possibly a glimmer of sanity. Her existence has been expanded through the co-workers she has befriended while her world has been multiplied by the scenarios in which she has existed as each group of customers spins in and out the revolving door.

Being a bartender, the key to survival and success is to understand what being on the front line means. Working within the service industry and interacting directly with the customer, Jane humbly accepts her role as entertainment.

Her alter ego has been invited, and if she is to make it through another shift and come out successful, it had better RSVP. Those who work behind the bar with Jane, those who survive by the whim of a patron, understand the magic of this façade. And such a façade carries over to more than the subtleties that may be lost on a consumer, while Jane and company are on the flipside of the bar, lightly chuckling in shared understanding.

Jane, as a bartender, can do her job anywhere. The trick here though is that not everyone can do it. Similar to those who inherit trust funds or receive an athletic gene passed onto them, Jane has come to learn her survival traits and taps into them on a daily basis. Jane conjures up many faces, many lives, and many scenarios sometimes in merely just one hour.

And on the seventh day, Jane returns to work; and Jane feels as if today might just be that day that she oh-so-candidly cracks. Yet, when she meets the eyes of the others milling in on a similar streak of summer work, she feels like she might just make it through; at least for one more day. Yet it’s not simply this commiseration with others that carries Jane through another long day; it’s those who are all in on the same secret.

For Jane, it’s not about merely getting by, but rather, pushing through and learning something new about herself every day. Every shift – although the blueprint looks the same – is filled with configurations of what Jane can and cannot do, and laced with alterations showcasing that she can, in fact, take on a little bit more.

You get what you pay for.

(Aug. 6, 2010) Recently, Jane got up close to an idea, looked it square in the face and thought, “Well this isn’t what I paid for.” Suddenly, she felt like a sucker who had bought into the thought of what something should be, rather than understand exactly what such an investment was.

And with that, Jane has buyer’s remorse. And other times, she’ll comparison shop. She’ll spend her time wondering how long a person has owned their home, how long a couple has dated, how old her good friend was when she took her first major step, officially entering adulthood. And then Jane will turn the lens on herself and wonder why she hasn’t bought anything yet, not even anything on sale.

The thing is, Jane doesn’t necessarily hunt for the sale, but more for the rarity item, the one that’s tucked back behind the front store items, the one-of-a-kind piece that no one else wants, because they don’t see it for more than it is.

What Jane is looking for takes a lot of searching. Much time passes while she holds out as others choose, settle down and expand their lives, grow their roots and blossom. But what she has to do needs to be by her own time clock. Her flowers bloom in conjunction with the sundial, the clock that can’t be set forward, neither can it be turned back. If the sun doesn’t shine one day, or if it’s cloudy, then time simply waits. And so does Jane.

So this is how Jane feels, in this middle place – this suspension in time – before things as she knows them, things as she has come to love them, will all change. Summer at the beach will soon turn into Fall and when the crowds thin out, she will be left to her own thoughts, pinpointing exactly where she is on her own internal track.

Once Jane sets out to define her actions, to separate and categorize them, they begin to fall into certain files –files that are labeled with daunting titles. Maybe it’s because Jane is afraid to do something in theory and to think about doing anything builds it into something more than it actually may be.

Now, in this middle place, Jane doesn’t want to stay and she can’t make herself go. Change isn’t a bad thing and Jane knows this, but specific actions that are associated with Jane’s past ignite familiar emotions, memories of impermanence.

But “baggage” is just a negative connotation to describe the fact that people have lives and pasts that have brought them to where they are now. Upon realizing this and keeping that idea she brought in her back pocket, Jane decides to pack up, fill a few cardboard boxes to the brim with the sum of all her parts and tape them tightly shut. Those items that kept jutting out and that have kept her up at night, those pieces that have served as anchor to various choices – they’ve finally been labeled and stored. And this time, as Jane moves purposefully into her future, such a label as “PAST” doesn’t seem so scary anymore.

Five sisters.

(July 23, 2010) Jane had the pleasure of spending an entire weekend with her four sisters. Yes, four and ranging from the youngest at 17 years of age to the eldest at age 30. The weekend ended with Jane feeling as if she had just relived about a decade of her past life, and that she had been treated to a glimpse of what her next few years could be like.

Spending time with siblings can stir up various emotions. Emotions like excitement, giddiness, pride and the feeling of completion — as if when Jane is with all of her sisters nothing can affect her and no one can penetrate their bond. Yet, sometimes other emotions sneak their way in, emotions that are unexpected, but seem reasonable when coming from such an inward place.

Jane sees her siblings as such an immense reflection of who she is that it can sometimes be tough for her to separate herself from them, to wash her hands of their choices, good or bad. If one sister is excelling, Jane tends to wonder what she can do to push herself further, to match her mark for mark. If another sister is flailing a bit, Jane commiserates with her, struggling to remove herself from her sister’s compromising position.

And from this point of view Jane might feel a bit competitive, tremendous pity or even a tinge of jealousy. Sometimes it feels like Jane is merely a minor derivative of her sisters, and that the person who each of her sisters is becoming is only a slight derivative of who she is. How interesting it is to look at a sibling and wonder about the possibility of being born as one of them, rather than as oneself. Looking at each one of her sisters is like looking into four different mirrors of possible alternate lives.

Family is not just a word. It’s a place that sits deep within Jane, a place that comes from within. “Family” is at the root of who Jane is, it is the foundation that has built her into who she has become. Jane looks at her mother or father and sees the kind of person they were in their youth through the interactions they have with their siblings. And being around her siblings, Jane begins to relearn parts of herself, parts that she lost along the way as she ventured from adolescence to adulthood.

Jane’s time with her sisters can be compared to hearing the neighborhood ice cream truck that reminds her of childhood, that something familiar is just around the bend. The older Jane gets though, the tougher it is to hold onto that sound that seems to just be nostalgia floating through the air, dissipating the longer the notes linger.

Alas, Jane is who she is, who she is, who she is — and her sisters are beautiful components to her as an individual. And whatever path her sisters are on in their lives isn’t about her — it’s about them, no matter if they fake left and then go right or stumble uphill, they’re each on their own adventure, meeting in the middle to recharge as they go. Their successes, their failures, Jane learns from them and is pushed to be as good as anyone of them, if not all four combined.

Skeletons in Jane’s closet

(July 16, 2010) With the middle of the summer season under way, Jane rarely gets to spend time with her Ocean City girlfriends without the hustle and bustle of blender drink machines whirring, a customer beckoning or a quick touchand go with a friend working the same shift, which, Jane must admit, can be very restorative.

That small time to connect with a friend in a hurried passing en route to another table or customer during a time of stress, during a time when there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel, just more and more days of July, is one of the things that keeps Jane going when all she feels she is able to do is crash.

Finally, though, there was a light at the end of the tunnel — or, a glass of wine at the end of a shift, or even more accurately, a table full of friends at the end of a long line of visitors. The other night, Jane shared a wonderful evening with her girlfriends that have become a major part of her life since she moved to the beach.

As discussed in a past article, Jane still isn’t sure if she left her home or returned to her home during her move to the beach, but she is beginning to believe that Ocean City is her true home, and that she had never really left at all.

Getting through the summers here in town, fighting the crowds that flood the streets, crowds that create lines, where, only a few months ago, lines didn’t form, Jane sticks it out all for the first brisk breeze of the fall — all for the first bike ride with her friends on the vacant Boardwalk. And as the first bronzed layers from the summer begin to shed, Jane becomes more understanding of herself. The more time spent in Ocean City, and with these girls, the more Jane becomes unveiled. And the more Jane observes the visitors.

She observes the cars revving their engines and hears the catcalls between the youth. And she thinks, “You don’t know my town.” Those who don’t know the winters and don’t know the falls and the springs and the sound of the ocean waves crashing late at night from across the highway — those who only chase the sun to Ocean City don’t know the decency of the moon.

Jane knows all too well now the flipside of the sunlight. She knows the dark, the chilly, and the echoes within this ghost town late at night and in the early morning. She knows how the rides sound when the empty salt-weathered rusty metal carts clang against one another when the breeze blows offshore.

She loves Ocean City for its skeletal appeal, for the backbone it bares with no one in town to provide its layers. And that’s how Jane is beginning to see herself: stripped of the bells and whistles, coasting down a road that once housed visitors from all over, cruising by seasonal shops that have temporarily nailed their doors shut, throwing up her hands as she catches the breeze, thinking,

“If this isn’t living, then I don’t know what is.”

Knit One, Pearl Two

(July 9, 2010) Being a 20-something, Jane feels the desire to be a part of an idea, an experience, a feeling. But what is to be done if those things turn out to be the opposite of what she desires?

How should she collect the broken pieces and glue back together shattered dreams? How does one stitch their heart back together?

Heartbreak, loss of a loved one, romantic break-ups, betrayal between friends, a dream stolen, an accomplishment mocked, an unexpected turn of events — as a 20-something, we’ve experienced at least one of these or other similar life-altering situations. But it seems to Jane that it is easier for one to admit to such experiences through commiseration with another.

Jane used to think that people were different from her, more so than they actually have shown themselves to be. Individually speaking, she wasn’t giving enough credit to what others might be going through, which have proven similar to what she’s been through. Individual interpretation, another seeing exactly what Jane sees, can’t ever fully be accomplished. Although others try to relate to what individuals are feeling, they’re only able to experience such things through association.

With sad emotions, we hesitate to share them. The novel “Eat, Pray, Love” illustrates this concept when the Italian man commiserates with Elizabeth Bishop during her heartaching middle-aged journey, with his words, “I’ve felt that on my skin.”

Such words are as soothing to hear as knowing the worst has come and gone and that someone else lived through something just as painstakingly similar. It seems that it’s easier for us to voice excitement and show happiness than it is to feel alone – as if it’s easier to do if no one knows we’re doing it.

And having faced her own bouts of disappointment, Jane realizes that she is at the cusp of being too old not to notice and too young not to bounce back. She has found that bouncing back, stitching the pieces back together, is a matter of quelling the battle between her head and her heart. Her emotions won’t navigate her through traffic and her head gets lost in her dreams. Jane can change sail with the direction of the wind; to resist when the wind switches is to weaken and eventually break.

Jane has chosen to be malleable while remaining strong. She uses the changing winds to her advantage and blazes an uncharted path. Accepting how life turns out rather than being a deconstructed bi-product of a situation gone awry, she’s reconfiguring the shattered parts of a dream, bit by bit.

Jane’s life, who she is, the paths she’s made for herself, they can be altered at any time. Jane isn’t writing her fate in ink. Her life is simply a sketch of what a good picture might look like. But, you know, pencil erases.

See Jane Run

(June 25, 2010) See Jane walk. See Jane run. Jane just went for a run, yet Jane isn’t what one would call a “runner.” She doesn’t necessarily work out; in fact, running for her has never really worked out. She’s even planning to put her summer gym membership on hold — yet, if anyone were outside early this morning, they would have seen Jane run.

Simply put, Jane has always had a fail-fail relationship with running. She’s tried to make it work so many times that she’s begun to see habitual patterns that are telltale signs that she’s about to stray. Similar to the way one fails in a romantic relationship, or a friendship, Jane has consistently been inconsistent with each past attempt she has made to re-build her relationship with running.

For example, she finds that she repeats similar high-calorie sweetnothings to herself that have served as the precursor to her throwing in the towel and, once again, giving up. Things like “This is great! I really need to do this, running will give me the energy I need, once I get over this hump!” Or other things like, “I’m not old enough yet to feel out of shape, running like this will really pay off!” Such sweet nothings are reminiscent of all the things Jane has heard a guy say in order to beef up a failing relationship, the kinds of things he says in an effort to trick them both into staying, before they inevitably stray.

Additionally, Jane finds herself admiring those with unrivaled energy levels, those who get a high off of running. Even thinking such a term out loud makes her pause — a high off of running? To feel that means to feel light and airy and energetic and lifted after going for a run. But so far, all Jane has experienced is a body that feels like lead, a pounding headache and Charlie horses. And maybe, she wonders, it’s because she doesn’t allow herself to get over the hump. Similar to getting past the tough spots in relationships, Jane gives up before she can even find out what the good feels like.

So now Jane can’t help but wonder, how does one become motivated and how does one sustain that motivation? Can it be found within the euphoric feeling of success and accomplishment, of meeting a goal? What makes a person say “enough” and begin taking care of herself again, or for the first time at all? Getting in shape requires discipline, physical activity and a healthy diet (the latter of which a friend recently confirmed for Jane was an important aspect of being healthy. Although she’d known this all along, Jane thinks it might be about time to put down the ice cream.

And, on the other side of the street, what makes one throw in the towel? What makes a person walk away from a relationship, end a friendship, walk instead of run?

For Jane, she’s noticed a few things for herself that motivate and deflate. So from here on, see Jane keep her mouth shut as she quells her urge for “positive affirmations” that are usually an onset to her demise. See Jane meet her workout buddy who keeps her motivated in the early morning hours. See Jane push through instead of give up. And finally, see Jane run.

Wash, Rinse, Repeat…?

(June 11, 2010) There are some things Jane will never do again. Perhaps (let’s hope) it’s running onto the beach late at night with friends and jumping into the ocean, only to be brought back to civility by the shining lights of police officers telling them to get dressed and go home. Or maybe it’s trying to keep a wild duck as a pet (which she named Waggles) only to wake up in the morning and realize that it’s broken free. Or racking up credit card debt, all the while fooling herself that “it’s plastic, it’s not real money.” No, Jane will never do that again.

And then there are the more somber, lovely moments in life that Jane will never be able to relive. Moments like walking down the isle of a crowded auditorium and receiving her high school and college diplomas. Special celebrations like 16th, 21st and 30th birthdays. And for some, it’s the anticipation of a wedding day and saying vows that won’t be said for a first time ever again.

As June at the beach sets in, so do the high school graduates who venture into town to celebrate their coming into adulthood and recent accomplishment. For weeklong periods, spanning through the month of June, these “Senior Weekers” take one week and do it up right.

In response to their unwinding and celebrating, Jane would like to offer an unlikely suggestion, one that might surprise avid “Jane” readers: how about we follow their lead? For just one week, lets drink ourselves into hangovers and drink those hangovers away. Let’s lie out from sun-up till sundown and get sunburned. Let’s eat unhealthy, greasy foods to “cure” ailments and then take a nap. Let’s laugh at things even when they’re not funny, and feel giddy simply from lack of sleep.

Let’s do all of these things in the name of some things we won’t ever be able to do again, some things we shouldn’t do again, and some we wish we never did at all. There’s a place where people go to let loose. Whether its at the beach or if it’s somewhere in the mountains, or a distant place only in one’s mind — no matter where it is, it’s all in this one place. And in that same great place that harbors memories of our childhood and spotted memories of our young adulthood, lies the factor that glues our soul together: permanence in a world where we can’t relive our best or our worst moments.

And that one place plays a different role through so many stages of an individual’s life. And here Jane realizes “perspective” — how one place can offer a different experience each time one returns to it. Or, how the “Senior Weekers” see Ocean City as opposed to how a seasonal sees it as opposed to how someone living yearround sees it.

And that’s the point of discovering this one place and then deciding, do you want to make it your permanent residence, and if so, how do you want to live in it? If Ocean City is symbolic to the one place where nostalgia and memories and desire are harbored, where is that place for you? And how long do you want to stay?

If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck…

(June 4, 2010) So far, Jane has covered a plethora of topics and she recently realized she hasn’t really delved into love. Now, to be fair, love isn’t something that Jane shies away from, but it’s the discernment of what is actually true love that gives her pause.

Jane has the utmost reverence for someone who is young and fervently in love. Even she has experienced what could be dubbed as a first, young love. She has also experienced being undeniably, truly in love with another person — so far, only once. That said, Jane has come to learn that a first love is very different from a true love.

Of course, Jane has also had a few others tucked beneath the surface that smelled like love, that sounded like love — but in the end, simply allowed her to grow and learn, rather than fall and commit.

Over the years, she has found herself questioning the majority of the boys to whom she has given her time. Before she reflects upon what she has learned and grown from what she would otherwise claim as her “mistakes,” she sometimes finds herself regretting the time she wasted with them, instead of spending time with her friends.

At this point in the thought process though, a catch-22 is realized: she could have been on her own or with her girlfriends, not felt the disappointment she felt, not gone through the eye-opening experiences that she did while dating. But then another thought comes to mind: if she didn’t date who she has now claimed to be “duds” in her past life, she never would have realized the things she truly wanted, the kind of connection with someone that truly makes her happy. She never would have come to find what her limit is, what sort of things are forgivable and what sort of things are red flags for the kind of person someone truly is.

Jane has concluded that it takes at least a little more than a year to get to know someone. With friendships and with relationships, everyone puts their best foot forward to showcase the attributes they’d like to offer another. Over time, though, people err or simply get lazy, and who they really are shines through. Sometimes the person beneath the façade is even lovelier than Jane had imagined. Other times, that person uncovered might be better off playing the fool of someone else, or simply alone. Some people just may not be meant to be in a relationship.

There is an unspoken rule of love. It doesn’t have to be explained and certainly cannot be reasoned with. As Jane explores through her twenties, she keeps certain pieces of wisdom tucked away: don’t force love, don’t search for it and don’t stay with it until you truly feel that you’ve found it.

The one thing Jane knows is, she doesn’t know what she wants

(May 28, 2010) The only thing Jane is trying not to do is the one thing she knows she’ll hate. She doesn’t want to be confined to a situation where no other choices are possible. She doesn’t want to stare at the end of a road and not see a left turn, or a right turn. She doesn’t want to see a dead end, or the reflection from the rearview, bouncing back what she’s already been doing for years and years and will do for more years to come.

And from all the things Jane knows she does not want, she has come to realize she doesn’t know what she wants. Jane is afraid to make a decision. One way or another, she can’t figure it out. The funny thing about commitment is, it doesn’t have to last forever — and the fact that a decision was made, well, that could make all the difference.

Jane struggles with the simplest things in life, like choosing an area carpet for her newly renovated apartment with tile flooring. She struggles with choosing which book to read. She’s even struggling with what struggle to reflect upon each week. She’s so tired of talking out of both sides of her mouth that her face is numb. Trying to please everyone, trying to say things that the mass audience wants to hear, things that reach not just one person, but 100 people — it’s causing Jane to stray from what she really wants. Well, what does Jane want?

And so, Jane has decided that, each day, she is going to make a decision. She is going to wear the wildest earrings. And she is not going to care about what everyone is whispering. She is going to start pointing the finger at herself. She is the one responsible for how her days go. She is responsible for how her life turns out. Whatever it is that Jane actually wants, she can tell you one thing for sure — she’s not going to drag her feet anymore in getting it.

She’s not sure if she wants to be married. She’s not sure if she wants to have kids. She’s not sure if she wants to be a homeowner. And thinking about these things makes her feel a feeling of desperation, since there is a countdown clock for all of things, right? But, on the flipside, she knows she desires a strong group of loyal friends and to be close to family, a job that guarantees enjoyment over money (and if she ends up breaking even in that regard, then top that sundae off with a cherry), and sometimes she thinks she could even take on a dog.

Bur for now, she’s just trying to talk herself into committing to a new book to read or maybe just that area rug she was eyeing up the other day.