A List.

Friday night alone, october night, and i compose

an incomplete list of things that i have done

I have run accross the National Mall on a spring night heavily scented with cherry blossoms, giggling madly and stumbling over the lyrics to Semi-Charmed Kinda Life, and I swear, I swear, I caught Thomas Jefferson winking at me from his cold marble dome, proclaiming as he did and does, that all men are created equal.

I have sat on a banister ten stories over Berlin, on a rooftop that usually shields diplomats from German rain, and gotten drunk on a bottle of white wine while watching my grandparents walz.

I have pushed nearly every member of my family into my grandmother's pool, I have eaten countless strawberry tarts on summer afternoons in her garden and rolled my eyes about them. I have taught three cousins how to dive (never sucessfully, that was someone else's job) and two to not go near the pool without water wings.

I have swum in sweet and salty water, in a turqouise Mediteranian and a murky green Krumme Lanke, in a heart-stoppingly cold Baltic Sea and bathtub-like Lewes bay, in heavily clorinated swimming pools and icy, pure mountain pools.

I've walked up mountains und nachts die Neuburger Straße hoch, hands buried deep in pockets and breath steaming as we talked and talked and talked until there was hardly any ice left to break. I've biked around Schlachtensee on summer nights when I needed to think, I've sat by river banks and lakesides and on windowsills and stared into the distance, looking for an answer that never came, and trying to find words for the incredible color the water turns when the sunlight hits it just so.

I found a beach once, a three minute walk away from my house; not a beach until I decided it was one,so I suppose you could say I made a beach once. I've made so many things: excuses and photoshop wallpapers, I used to make calenders for my grandmothers every year a Christmas time. I've made potholders and doll clothes, I've made three Kleine-Ich-Bin-Ich out of my old pajamas, and, more recently, I made a pig. I've made cakes and a turkey and an angel garland for our hallway; I've made do with a package of spaghetti and not much else in my kitchen, I still make belief every day of my life, making my own world. I've made promises and power point slides, commitments I couldn't keep, I've made little girls laugh and, I'm afraid, I've made my mother cry more than once. 

I've crawled out of my parents' laps and into my friends' arms. I've hidden my face behind my grandfather's bony shoulder and buried it in your stomach, I've curled myself up in your bed and cuddled with you on a freezing January night, I've hugged teachers and bosses and friends more often than I count. I've buried my face in countless shoulders when happy or sad or tired or just needing to feel a little less alone. I've kissed babies on noses and stomachs. I've plucked eyelashes off cheeks and thighs and fingertips, and made fervent wishes on every one.

I have written. I wrote thirty-five pages on a polisci exam in high school once in four hours. I've written countless first chapters of bestselling novels, never much more. I've written postcards with every word achingly chosen, and press releases with a little less care (it didn't show). For three months, I have been writing letters once a week, and a little before that, I easily wrote five textmessages in a day.

I have yelled. I have yelled at family members and computers and strangers in cars and on busses. Because I'm not good at conflict, I rarely yell at friends, though I do in my head, in the shower, hashing out long, furious rants and then as I rinse, all my anger slips away. I've cried, though not often, unexpectedly during movies (The Family Stone comes to mind), I'm not a waterworks type of person, and when I do cry, it's usually out of anger or affection, rather than pain. I've laughed exponentially more often then I've cried, just yesterday I nearly chocked on my laughter, in biology class in twelth grade, I nearly got thrown out of class because I wasn't able to stop giggling (remember that?). I've smiled without knowing it, and laughed to myself to things that were only funny in my head

I've sung. As a little girl in the car, begging my parents to have a "family concert" with me, and ever since then, I've spent every day of my life singing, one way or another. I've stood in churches and on risers doing dorky dance routines, I've sung in S-Bahns and ICE-trains, on streets and danced through Zehlendorf at night while singing La Vie Boheme (Try it, it's very satisfying). I've sung Wicked with parts, and Light My Candle, too, I've sung the guitar solo and back-up vocals to the Glee version of Don't Stop Believing so often in the past few weeks I could produce a YouTube video at this point, I've hummed church hyms and Christmas carols under my breath in crowded busses and university coriddors, I've walked out of choir rehearsals with friends stuck to my side and a tune stuck in our heads, I've sung children to sleep and taught them ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall.

I drank vodka red bull once. It was disgusting. I snuck out of my history PK in 11th grade to drink coffee with lots of milk and sugar every week,  I went through a phase where I drank diet Dr. Pepper almost every day, I've drunken a lot of Freixenet in the past six months and watching Guido Westerwelle celebrate his electoral victory a few weeks ago I numbly downed two glasses of amaretto. I drink in moments and air, wet spring air and humid summer nights, wet leaves and crisp winds in fall, icy gusts of winter wind scented with cinnamon and gingerbread spice, I open my lungs and drink them in. I bury my nose in smells I love, old library books and brick buildings, garlic frying in butter, coffee, Berlin in spring -horse chestnut blossoms and latte macchiato- and the way my mother's scarves smell.

I have been to the White House. I actually stood behind the press podium -CJ's podium, Robert Gibb's- and with one toe inside the oval office- Bush's, then. I've been on television, recently, and seen more shows produced than I've kept track of. I watched Barack Obama give a speech in Berlin as the sky turned pink, I've travelled in planes and trains and busses and cars and boats, I've been to every continent except Australia and Antactica, though the list of places I want to go never seems to be getting any shorter, and the only places I ever really want to tavel to is the US and the beach.

I have been confused about where I belong, I have spent a lot  of my time wondering if I should have chosen to be someone else when I had the chance. But I have been reassured and reassured myself. I've recieved compliments and high setbacks, I've been told my boss that he'll buy me cake once I'm his boss (true story!). I've failed, and mostly that's been my own fault, and some things, I never even tried.

I have done so much.

And on a friday night in October, I made this list, which I posted at 11:11, when I have made a wish.