I didn’t write a whole lot last year, in any form, either on my novel or on this blog. I wrote plenty at work, but now that’s over and it’s a whole other story shaping up to make 2012 just as wild as 2011, but hopefully, please God, wild in like a fun and exciting way, not in a panic-inducing way …

Anyway, I was right in the middle of writing a lengthy post about it all, but I got sidetracked by my roommates and then I added another several hundred words to my lovely fiction manuscript (we’re cruising at about 85,000 words) and then I started looking at the photography of Jamie Beck, and realized I hadn’t posted a single image last year, so before we get to any words, here are some of my favorite visuals from 2011. Enjoy.

(click on the photos, they get bigger!)

Since I know that thinking of those moments, “in the moment” can be quite challenging, I’m going to start a list of them here, to help me remember when I most need them (in no particular order) …

That time, in college, that I took a box of leftover Valentine’s Day cookies and mashed them up and made them into a paste with water and then Corey and I poured it out onto the front porch in the shape of a heart and the pink dye of the cookies was so stubborn that the maintenance guys had to come and pressure wash the stain off the concrete.

Getting the first glimpse of Mt. Ararat through the windshield of our van as we traveled our way north across eastern Turkey. They warned us that the mountain was usually covered in clouds in the afternoon and evening, but on the day we were there, it was clear the entire time. We even got to see the sunset reflected off its tip.

All of Turkey was pretty cool, actually, like being woken up to the 5:00am call to prayer the first morning we were there. A haunting sound coming in through the half-light of early morning.

That feeling you get when you drive down the 10 Freeway, headed west, toward downtown L.A., and it’s nighttime, and it’s clear, and the skyscrapers are silhouetted against the sky and they’re so clearly cut that they look like a sticker you could just peel from the horizon.

Sunrises in Venice Beach.

That one time I ran eight miles in preparation for my half marathon even though it was pouring rain and one of my shoes was sopping wet and making me limp from its soaking weight.

Getting to read my poetry in front of an audience at LACMA.  And it was a poem I really liked, too.

Going to a shoot a show, and feeling the electric buzz of the audience just before the headlining act comes on stage.  There have been many great ones like this—Beck, Monsters of Folk, Fleet Foxes, Local Natives, etc.

Late night, impromptu banana splits with Annelies in the middle of February in Chicago.

Getting to meet and study with one of my literary heroes at the Napa Valley Writer’s Conference and finding out that he was not a jerk and actually one of the coolest human beings I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.

Finishing the first draft of my novel. That whole Christmas weekend in Palm Springs was actually pretty awesome.

Getting to see my mom’s childhood home in Estonia, and the beach where they fled to freedom.  Also spending so many days in Estonia that the language started to make sense to me.

Walking across the Charles Bridge, alone, at sunrise, in Prague, after having laid in bed all day because the night previous I had eaten too much pizza and drank too much Becherovka, and pranced around the cobblestone streets a bit too strenuously.

Running up and down the black sand of Piha Beach in New Zealand, breathlessly chasing a 12 year old and a dog and a soccer ball, with Lion’s Rock looming in the background.

That night that Nathan asked to be my boyfriend and I was so happy, I couldn’t even sleep ’cause I was literally buzzing with excitement. Just laying in bed, buzzing, a stupid grin on my face for hours.

That’s all I can think of right now. There are more, of course. Many, many more, but for now, that’s good.

Here’s some photos from last week’s trip. I took plenty of color photos as well (as evidenced below), but I dunno, the city seems to look better in black and white. The muted palate helps tone down the overwhelming energy, the glaring lights, the bright colors, the unctuous odors that envelope you like temporary cloaks as you walk down the sidewalk.

This trip took me further afield than 2009′s jaunt. Not to the outer boroughs or anything, but further west and further east and further south than I’ve been. Chelsea, the Bowery, Chinatown, all new territory for me, and all unique in their look and feel. And of course Central Park, which is singular in its scope and ingenuity of design and purpose. Thank you, Frederick Law Olmsted for imagining such a beautiful space and the loving detail with which you brought it to life. I’m sure you never could have conceived the immensity of the city that grew up around your park, but I’m sure you’d be happy to know that it’s still fully intact, over a century later.

Some pretty apartments along the High Line

Chelsea

Wanderers

This apartment building reminded me a little of the Fred and Ginger building in Prague

The Upper East Side and some foreboding clouds

Arches

Pretty, eh? Can’t believe this is nestled in the midst of one of the busiest, smelliest cities in the world.

The Dakota

In addition to castor oil packs and garlic pills and therapy, I’m taking part in a “personal growth group” offered through my church. It’s an eight week class to help us understand why we do the things we do, to be able to finger and name certain thoughts or feelings or beliefs that we hold so tightly to that we don’t realize how wrongheaded or false they are. It’s a lesson in spiritual discovery, this group, and as I’m about half-way done at this point, I feel as if it’s produced more tangible fruit than any of the other therapies I’m working through, save for a cleared out digestive system.

Every week we have homework. A couple of weeks ago, I was journaling about my childhood, as part of my assignment, and I came to realize that something I did as a child I still do now, and that is a habit of building up walls around me and then, in a way, testing those around me to see who would take the time and effort to get past those walls. Those who did “passed,” and were therefore trustworthy. Those who didn’t “failed,” and became the subject of my resentment, negative bias, etc.

Now, it was startling enough to realize I still do this, and then link it back to a particular time in my past, but what was even more startling was what my group leader said about it all when I relayed my experience. For a long time, this habit is something that I felt bad about doing. For whatever reason, there is a lot of guilt and/or shame that’s tied up in it, as if I should have known better or this idea that I screwed myself up somehow or failed to learn how to properly relate to others by doing this. But my group leader said, “you know, I think it’s a real testament to God’s creation, that at that young age, you knew instinctively how you had to protect yourself, even if you didn’t understand what was going on at the time.”

Wow. I’d never thought about that in a positive sense before. Forever it’s been a negative thing. But hearing her say those words, that at that age, there was no way for me to “know better,” and that I did what I somehow knew I needed to do in order to be safe. I mean, she also said that as an adult, I no longer need to hold onto that way of being, and that the real challenge, I suppose, is learning how to drop that defense mechanism in favor of some other m.o. What what a wonderful, supportive thing to hear about something that I so easily demonize about myself. And how forgiving I need to be with myself, especially my younger self, who truly did not understand the significance of her actions.

My homework is pretty fun some weeks. I had to go on a “date” this past week and chose to go hike around an area of L.A. called the Bronson caves with my roommate. Photos of the adventure to appear soon.

It was not so much a question as it was a statement.

I pouted and then I pleaded with her to let me test it just one more time, explaining a recent inability to take a full breath and slight wheeze, but she literally wrestled it out of my hands, and go to CVS we did, only to find out they don’t take returns after 10:00 pm. I was then ordered to put it in my trunk and provide photographic proof of return tomorrow afternoon.

Even though I was upset, I appreciate friends like Annlee.

Hypochondria is a funny thing. I don’t mean that literally, cos it’s not really funny at all; it’s certainly not fun in any sense. But here I am, nearly four months after my first panic attack and I’m more concerned now about my health than ever before. I am hyper aware of my body and all its sensations, and everything means something. Of course, in reality, they probably don’t, but the sensations breed fear, which breed a desperate need for information, which leads me to Google, which leads to more fear and then more symptoms. It’s amazing what the mind can do to the body, and all the while, at least most of the time, I am cognizant of what I am doing. A part of my brain says, “no, you will not fill in that search term box,” but I do it anyway, and an hour later, I am in a greater tizzy than I was before, which leads me to make impulsive drug store purchases.

I am my own worst enemy. I am on a merry-go-round, and even though the ride is making me ill, I don’t get off when it stops, I just put in more quarters.

The crux of all this, of course, is why. Partly, I believe, it’s hereditary. Apparently Daddy-O exhibited various hypochondria tendencies, but filtered them through a veil of humor, so who know if or how tortured he was by it all. I know that I am very tortured by it, so I can only imagine what he felt.

But another big factor is that I’m using it as a way to distract myself from really getting to the meat of the issue, my underlying issues, those deeply rooted, that grow through the soil of years and are still attached to how I interact with friends, co-workers, potential male companions, not to mention my career and even God. Deep down, utterly deep down, is this belief that something is wrong with me, or that if I do something wrong, something awful is going to happen.

I use my health anxiety, too, to distract myself from the things of life that I’m unhappy about. Because despite its unpleasantness, it’s a lot easier to fixate on the remote possibility of having a heart attack, or pulmonary embolism, or fatal arrhythmia, or something else, than to think about and work through the fact that I have so much student loan debt, I will probably be dead (of natural causes) long before it’s ever paid off; or the daunting prospect of allowing myself to flourish in my chosen medium (which is writing); or that I’ve basically written off dating since the whole Tony debacle two years ago; or that I’m terribly, achingly lonely most of the time; or that so many of my friends seem to have moved on in life and I feel stuck.

Yes, thank you, I’ll take congestive heart failure worries any day.

And I guess I don’t know why I feel so ill equipped for life. Did I spend my teens and twenties making bad decisions, only to find myself at thirty completely tied in knots? And how do I untangle them? Or do I just have to live with the consequences?

I will say one thing for sure, that this is all getting kind of old, this hypochondria. I want to think about other things. I want to not get behind at work and then stress out as more work comes in. I want to talk about other things to my friends. And not have panic attacks while driving down the freeway. And not have to call my mom at 1:00 am because I think I’m dying. I want to get back to my novel. I want to eat sugar. And drink a cocktail. And sip a cappuccino. I want my life back, basically. Yet I just keep putting in the quarters.

There are options, of course. Medication, for one, which is looking more and more like a not-so-last-case scenario. Nutrition, perhaps—I am seeing that nutritionist on Saturday. Therapy is good but it’s slow as molasses, but I am joining an eight-week personal growth group offered through my church that I hope will be beneficial.

I remember talking to this guy Tino the weekend of my first anxiety attack and I bemoaned my newly-mandated restriction on caffeine, and he warned me to be careful, that if I didn’t get to the bottom of my addiction, that another one would just pop into place. I scoffed at him then, never in a million years thinking that it would be replaced by all this. It’s a hard fact to accept, but I guess that’s the first step in recovery, isn’t it? Admitting that I actually have a problem, and boy do I.