Today I would like to offer up a more vulnerable post in the form of a short story that I am still very much editing and contemplating. When I started writing it, I was intending it to be an idea for a full novel because I am nothing if not ambitious. Then I read Carmen Maria Machado’s book Her Body and Other Parties and realized that short stories can be just as compelling to write as they are to read. There is a chance this short story turns itself into a whole world, but for now I am sharing it with you in this form.

I am also dedicating this to my best friend Catherine Castillo Cruz, who has been a Toothless to my Hiccup since we first met back in 2010. She’s a writer and facilitator, too, and I want to gift her with appreciation. Check her out at Bold & Bookish!

Enjoy!

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I am so full of thought it often feels like peace is mistaken for sadness. 

And I hesitate to call it anxiety, my thought-fullness. 
Unless it is anxiety, and the lack of – 	
     depression. 

I’d rather be anxious than 
     depressed. 

I learned that the hard way, when I took the medicine to quiet the thoughts that, 
     by then, 
     had infiltrated my body. 

My heart isn’t supposed to think. 
My skin isn’t supposed to think. 

I took the medicine to drive all the thoughts back into my brain where they belonged but instead showers became pointless and I was convinced no one loved me and I might as well die because this is how it will be forever. 

I didn’t like that because 
     I love showers 
          and
      I know people love me
	and
     I love to be alive. 

So I asked the doctor ‘please can I get off this medicine’ and
the doctor said she was worried about what would happen in the future and 
I said 
     ‘well, what about right now?’

Since I have seen true sadness I no longer mistake it for peace. 
I keep my thoughts full and am ready for whatever comes along with it. 

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Oh hello,

It has been about a year since I decided to start this little corner of the internet, and only now has the idea percolated into something that feels worthy of introduction.

My name is Angie, and I am a writer. If you’re here reading this now, you may know this and have made your way to this page for a variety of reasons. I am grateful you are.

I am a writer in the same way a lot of writers in the world are writers — furiously scribbling or typing in notebooks and documents that may never see the light of day. Recently I have had many discussions with friends and close colleagues about how we are allowed to label ourselves. Many writers, such as myself, have no published works or financial gains from their writing. Many who I have talked to have trouble calling themselves writers. It wasn’t until a conversation with my very dear friend Catherine (who’s work you can find at Bold & Bookish) that I truly began to call myself a writer. Just as runners are runners if they run, or travelers are travelers if they travel. Writers are writers because they write.

This project started for personal reasons, to give myself an end result to my seemingly endless revisiting of old musings. By posting them here, I was able to let them go. To bring them to a point of finality. And to move on to the next step that any writer would be insane to deny they want: someone to read their work. Of COURSE we want that, how could we not? Does a writer not dream of being the next great read? As I write this I am currently locked, romanticized, Emily-Dickinson-style in my room, manically crafting delectable poetry on the affectations of nature. A bee DIED in my window and I spun out into an existential malaise for god sake! I’m bleeding for my art PLEASE READ IT AND PAY ME!

I digress.

My hope with this project now is to continue with that noble effort, but to give myself structure and stamina for a continued writing path. I am seeking higher education, as I am deeply academic by nature and all of my writing is untrained. If I have subscribers to report to, I will hold myself accountable way more than if I was my only audience. Your patronage will help my financial stability toward this dream, and my continued efforts will only strengthen as a result.

You are absolutely welcome and encouraged to continue to enjoy my musings for free, but if you subscribe to From The Field Notes, you’ll receive monthly bonus content that will be worthy of $5 and will include such things as an air sign talking about her feelings, travel notes from all the upcoming trains across the country I’ll be taking, the perks and benefits of being a modern unmarried spinster living with two adult roommates, and EVEN perhaps recipes based on real-time grocery prices and local produce availability! All in all, I promise to make it worth your while.

Welcome to this journey, and thank you for being with me. I hope you enjoy it, and it inspires you to craft your own.

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Boys scatter like that when they break a vase. 
Guilty.
They scan each other. Which one will give them away?
They make a silent pact to protect the boy they know did it. 
They won’t tell. No one saw. 
The vase just broke. 
The vase had a gun.
I broke the vase in self defense. 
Yes. They agree. That is the story. 
They come closer to inspect the damage. …

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May your food be local.

May your Palestine be free.

May you never feel the weight of oppression in the way it is enforced on the Indigenous communities of this country.

May you know the name of your neighbor before they are unlawfully dragged from their home.

May you do something to stop it.

May you, every day, resist the apathy br…

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Small, gentle steps.
A month of them
     marking the small, gentle path
     of a small, gentle journey
     toward a small, gentle
     something.
Yet to be defined.

Except by a small, gentle feeling
     that perhaps this could be
     something big.

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This morning I’m crying
	because I don't have any chocolate chips
	and we always kept chocolate chips in the house.
Now it feels like I’ll never make cookies again.

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Skin so warm that
	when you put your nose to my cheek
	I can feel my freckles blossom. 
Hands so strong that
	when you grip my leg during the
	scary part, the weight of you tethers
	me to the earth we share. 
Lips so soft that
	when you kiss me I breathe in 
	the smell of every person, thing, place
	I’ve ever loved. 
Heart so free that
	I will never be …

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click. refresh. click. 
refresh.
The irony is that
     it’s stale.
Insanity is doing the same thing 
     over and over
     expecting available appointments. 

click. 
refresh. 
click. refresh. 
click. re
	fresh. cli
		ck refr
			esh. c
				lick.
				refresh.
click.
refresh.
I’ve meditated for 130 days in a row. 
click.
But I can’t keep it together
re…

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I am thorough in my madness. 
Every tantrum explored to the fullest. 
Every crevice filled with collections 
     of my most wild scenarios and unhinged whims. 
Angered threads frayed with overuse.
Righteous justice burning holes in all my good clothes. 

And yet I hoard stacks of surrendered dreams 
     collecting dust on top of pre-recorded demotivat…

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You cannot be sad
while drinking tea,
for there is so much to consider.

The antioxidants in a cup of tea 
is equal to one person who you love very much
hugging you at just the right tightness. 

One cup of tea, brewed properly, 
can give one the sense of satisfaction 
with the present moment
while simultaneously offering the sipper
a rush of anticipati…

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A walk took me around the pond to see ducks and geese returning to their homes after a long winter.

I stared and watched them for a while, thinking just how handy it is to know what you have to do in this life.

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Right in the middle of a thought about when it was that I stopped wanting to tell her all the things that crossed m…

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