today was all shades of purple

i feel
confident and sure and still i'm so afraid
i feel so young and i feel so old,
so young with this long lavender bow in my hair that made me look like lucy when i read mccalls this afternoon, you said
so old because people wrote me postcards in 1908 and my decisions matter more every day.
i feel like i have to choose which one i am.
i feel
dusty like the jacket of the sinatra record i bought today and
bright blue remembering that picasso sketch
and telling you about how i think in color.
so privileged, because, has there really been another woman on earth more privileged than me? white and middle class in 2013? how do i live up to that?
i feel like jazz.
i feel full of potential and thrilled at the thought of the future
i feel like the future never starts.

i'm still living

in fact, i'm very much alive.
i am looking at the tops of trees again
and noticing flowers. and tasting rain and singing loud to norah jones.
i spent two hours in front of one norman rockwell in the museum the other day. right next to it was two photographs of louis armstrong and ella fitzgerald, and there was a sensor there so when you moved it would start playing "dream a little dream of me",
so i sat there on that stool and stared at that painting of a church in new york city and dreamed a little dream and it was absolutely perfect.
i'm so happy and so full and so me. and so capable.
and life is good.