​down the green green hill
by the dirt dirt path
through the stone stone gate
past the snarled snarled hedge
round the still still lake
in the grim grim shade 
of the gnarled gnarled tree
lies a cold cold grave.
it’s yours.

it’s yours.

​This is a ghost story.
It is also a true story.
There are some frightening images.
And an ending that makes them worth it.

When I was young, I felt normal.
Nothing about me seemed out of the ordinary.
I wore pink and ribbons in my hair
I was seen and not heard
and went to church on Sunday.
Just like you.
I played with dolls and dress up and make believe
And stepped on legos in the basement.
And was afraid of the dark.
Just like you.
One day, my sister trapped a tiny spider under a cup 
And while I screamed “KILL IT”
She gently placed it outside in the sunlight. Of a crisp autumn day.
And I screamed “WHY DIDN’T YOU KILL IT”
and wore pink and went to church on Sunday
and learned the pledge of allegiance
and felt mostly normal.
And the shadowed things inside me sharpened their teeth.
As I grew up, I felt mostly normal.
Mostly.
I celebrated Columbus Day, and went to church on Sunday,
and pretended I was interested in chasing boys on the playground,
and stepped on small spiders because I was scared.
Just like you.
And the shadowed things inside me licked their lips and sharpened their teeth,
my what big teeth you all have
and swallowed me down whole.
We’re in the belly of the beast now, the very witching hour of night, when churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world
facts made of fictions and fictions spun like so much fools gold
look at the birdie, look over here
while the sharp teethed beasts eat your life, your soul, your future over your shoulder
and we kill each other on their command, so they don’t have to
a graveyard of frightened things, stamping on each other’s happiness like so many
young children crying over the tiniest spider
but i’m normal, i feel normal
just like you
i’m just like you
i can put pink ribbons in my hair and dissociate through church on sunday
while a pastor thousands of miles away screams murder on my head in the name of nothing
and an army of conservative ghosts flood the frontlines 
to give you orders and tell you where the enemy is - it’s them! it’s there! it’s you!
and i wear pink and play with dolls and kill the beautiful frightening things that
threaten a victory without a fear
a victory without conquerors
just a moment where we stand and i see you
and you see me
and you realize
i am just like you.
i am just like you.
and soft! i scent the morning air
the sun rises.

And the conservative ghosts which once haunted the shadowed parts of my life
Proved to be weak and insignificant, fearful, trembling things
Lies told to a frightened, grasping child
only ghosts, only specters that died shrieking in the sun
And were replaced by something brave, authentic, warm, substantial, full-fleshed
Something like this.

these days, i don’t feel normal.
i feel like me.
i wear whatever color i feel like.
and sleep in, my cat curled warm on my chest on sundays.
and i will live.
i will be happy.
just like you.

There’s a pain in my right eye.
It’s been getting worse.
It could be nothing. Or.

When I was a kid, reading stolen chapters under covers
flashlight tucked under my chin or gripped between teeth,
keeping quiet when I heard my father climbing the stairs,
holding my breath as he switched off the hallway light.

Were such things here as we do speak about,
or have we eaten on the insane root that takes reason prisoner?

I click into WebMD. Where is the pain? I click head, then eye.
Add Common Symptoms (2). Eye hurts and eye pain.
It’s enough for a FAIR match. (5) Fair Matches.
Sty, Dry Eye, Acute Sinusitis, Pink Eye, Chronic Sinusitis.

What is left out: the pain gets worse at night, the flares around streetlights warping
even when I wear contacts.
After I weep, my eyes are drier than they’ve ever felt and stick under my lids.
I stare into nothing and the pain sharpens down to a point, until I can’t keep my eye open any longer.

Out vile jelly! Where is thy lustre now?
All dark and comfortless.

These days, scrolling stolen chapters under covers
iPhone gripped tightly in my sweaty blanket fort hand,
keeping quiet when I hear my mother climbing the stairs,
holding my breath as she pauses outside my bedroom door.

And the pain in my right eye gets worse.
It could be nothing.


***I wrote this about three weeks ago. Got diagnosed with an eye infection this week lol we are slowly healing.

I fell in love in JFK because there was a terrible windstorm and lightning
And our plane was delayed for over 3 hours.
We all had to get off then, because of some rule:
if your plan is delayed for over 3 hours, you must get off the plane
(i don’t know why)
It’s lucky, because:

A plane left right before we were scheduled to take-off
They made it out and we were next
And then we had the announcement “We’ll be returning to the gate”
People were fine for the first thirty minutes.
After that, it was all rising annoyance and pointed questions for the air stewards
And a baby crying and more annoyance
As if babies can help it, when they need a good cry.
Three hours isn’t that long, in the scheme of the universe
And I’ve never minded waiting
So I did some Sudoku and tried to listen a book on tape that I’d been meaning to read but couldn’t bring myself to focus on, and found that I couldn’t bring myself to focus on the tape either, despite literally having few other options
Maybe it’s the book, I thought, then:
Or maybe it’s just me.

At three hours, the person in the seat next to me was ready to mutiny
Talking about lawyers and refunds and an outrage
I distantly thought about this news story I read, about this plane that got struck by lightning mid-flight
and crashed… I think, somewhere over Portugal
Only one passenger survived, a young girl, whose row had gone into some dense shrubbery
And she walked away with only a broken arm
She walked, literally, away until she found a cloister of nuns
Was it nuns?
Who brought her to hospital?
Or maybe it was just a hospital.
I can’t remember.
Either way, I don’t worry so much
About outrages when the alternative is flying hazardously through a windstorm.
​
And after all,
if we had taken off on time
If we had chanced it, squeezing boldly through the burgeoning winds into the open air
I would never have fallen in love at JFK, with you
Standing blearily at a generic coffee stand, the sign fluorescently declaring
“I LOVE NEW YORK”
with a magazine under your arm and a caterpillar neck pillow cradling you softly

it's almost like an alternate life when i'd planned to finish this trek on day 10. i am only grateful and delighted about my decision to extend my trek a day. it means that i've gotten to slow down and look around on my walk today, which has been nice. waking up to the news of the overturn of roe v. wade was so sickening, it was almost a relief to get out on the road and spend some energy pounding the pavement. here are some thoughts (from the middle!) of day 10:

• shoutout to an IG buddy who let me know that my past three blogs haven't published properly! here i was thinking it was only last night only to find that the issues went back to day 6! it seems like the problem was....get this...i was forgetting to press publish. NICE! the issue should be fixed now!
• day 10 was difficult to get started. of course, reading about roe v. wade was super demoralizing and i spent a bit of time sitting on my bed feeling like i didn't want to get started. i think that's relatively common for me with penultimate things though...i'm hoping i'll be able to start tomorrow with the sense of the finish line coming closer! just don't talk to me about those last few miles haha!
• once i got started, i really feel like i found a good rhythm! taking the day on the bike seems to have REALLY helped with my ankle/knee situation, and i actually enjoyed some of the long stretches of walking. it certainly doesn't hurt that the further east i go, the more and more peaceful the scenery becomes! water, vineyards, farm stands....it's really a completely different geography from what i saw on april 24th in brooklyn!
• the big drama of this trip seems to be my cell phone charger brick. i left ANOTHER one plugged into the wall of a hotel and am now on charger brick number THREE. you think i'd be like "fool me once..." but no, it turns out i never learn. luckily i walked past a CVS (hello, old friend) and stopped in for a brick and a gatorade.
• for the first time???? i think??? i'm actually writing this blog a little bit BEFORE the end of my walking day! i still have about two miles to go before i get to my hotel, but check-in isn't until 3 PM and i randomly happened across a public library! i figured now was a great time to deal with my blog snafu AND make use of some free wifi, bathrooms, and chairs....so here i am! 
• RANDOMLY!!!! i also just ran into one of the cast members from my most recent show! shoutout to gabe!!! he asked me what i was doing out here and when i said, "i'm walking from brooklyn to montauk" he only looked SLIGHTLY skeptical. maybe it's my ginormous hiking backpack and irreversibly wind-swept hair that convinced him.
• once again my plan for tonight is to rest, go to bed early, and wake up ready to walk. there's definitely a bittersweet feeling that has been creeping into my heart as i get closer and closer to montauk...i'm sure i'll have a clearer idea of what it actually is tomorrow and it'll be interesting to reflect on the whole journey as an entity. honestly, i've been here for every step, every mile, every ankle twinge and random ache....and sometimes it still doesn't feel like i've really done it. standing on the pier in brooklyn feels like some dream that i had years ago.
• enough of this nostalgic nonsense! i'm going to make use of the sweet free wifi to make my social media post for the day and watch some youtube videos and then i'll get right back to it!

for you: we will keep fighting, we will keep organizing, we will keep pushing back against the facistic mechanisms of oppressive systems until we achieve liberation, equity, happiness. i know we will! i love you! and i'll see you tomorrow!

day 9 is done!!! done!!! this day has been looming over me for a few reasons: it was my longest distance day, the forecast showed rain, and i’m getting pretty dang tired lol. i’ll tell you all about what went down in this blog post! (excuse any weird formatting, im writing on my phone instead of my laptop - details below!!)

• this AM i did my LAST interview of the series!!!! hooray! another varied and interesting perspective! i really feel like we covered so much ground in these interviews, and i’m getting excited to get back and start editing! i can’t wait to share them all with you! another HUGE thanks to everyone who took part!
• because of the reasons listed above (distance, rain, ailments) i decided to do today via bike rather than foot….and WHAT a GREAF decision that was!
• it RAINED. pretty much from the time i left my interview to the time i met my mom at a pizza place near my hotel…it RAINED. beyond that, it was cold and windy - which already wasn’t brilliant on a bike (especially near the water! i have begun to see water!) but would have been much LESS brilliant on a 9-hr trek.
• speaking of 9-hr treks, i was able to cover the same distance on my bike in a little less than 3 hours - which has given me ample to time to relax, stretch, take a warm bath, get cuddled up, etc.
• mysteriously!!!! my room at the hotel got upgraded which has really cracked me up. it’s HUGE and there are two rooms with a bed in each room? i’m only staying for one night? what do i do with all this real estate lol???
• as far as the aches and pains go, biking really did what i thought it might as far as taking some of the pressure and impact off my ankle(s). i’m not going to jinx myself by saying i feel any certain way, but i’m hopeful that i’ll have energy and recovery enough to get back to the road tomorrow!
• another AWESOME development is: because my interviews are over, i was able to unload a BUNCH of equipment from my backpack! my mom (thank u 💕) came to meet me out east to drop off/pick up my bike and she also was able to unload some of the heavy nonsense i’ve been lugging around for over a week: like my laptop (thus the phone-style blog) and a WHOLE ASS TRIPOD HAHAHA.
• finally: yes, i caught a glimpse of some water today! a tiny sliver of coast, if you will. it really hammered home that - despite the rain and the aches, i am getting closer and closer to that finish line!!! 

if you’ve made it this far in my blog, you get a special little piece of trivia! obviously, long island is 118 miles long. i have been telling everyone who will listen lol but - because of the interviews and the zig-zagging from here to there - my walk will be MORE than 118 miles…….HOWEVER! today, when i arrived at my final interview, i’m happy to say i hit the 118 mile mark of my specific journey since leaving brooklyn!!!!! i can’t believe it!!! keep that in mind when you leave your guesses on the total mileage……

​see you tomorrow!

day 8 dawned with a lot of promise. i've been feeling trepidatious about day 8 (and 9) since almost the beginning of my journey because these are the two longest distance days of the entire journey! back to back! who planned that? let me at them! regardless, i started the day really well....and finished it crying on the side of the road in brookhaven. let's dive in, shall we?

• it has been a FULL WEEK since i stood near the water in brooklyn and began walking eastward! it's very difficult to think about it, because the days on the road have all sort of collapsed into one mega day. either way - it's been a week! yay!
• like i said: day 8 started well! i had a funny little continental breakfast at my hotel (there was some weird machine that made pancakes on a conveyor belt? is this the future?) and i began walking with actually a lot of energy! my body felt about as good as it has since day 2!
• what i discovered is: for a long distance day, it's much more sustainable to do shorter burst with interspersed periods of rest. long treks are JUST NOT IT. unfortunately, due to my own poor scheduling, i did the first half of the day at a lovely, broken up, leisurely pace......and finished it by pretty much half-marathoning my way to my airbnb without stopping - which was horrible!
• i had my second to last interview in sayville, and luckily from now on my path is pretty much due east (or east-erly) towards montauk! because of the boomeranging i did to get to my various interviews, i still have almost a THIRD of the distance of long island to travel! so make sure you take that into account when you're guessing exactly how far i ended up walking.
• i will say: as i make my way through eastern suffolk towards the forks, the scenery is changing, the way cars drive on the road is changing, the volume of suburbia is changing - i was wondering when i'd see that shift and it's gratifying that it's finally happening! it makes me feel like i'm heading towards that final stretch.
• i thought a lot about walking today - especially during the early part of the morning when i more or less had energy haha! one of my drama teachers at guildhall used to say that if you walked a very long distance, your body would naturally find an efficient posture for motion. i have not found that to be true, but maybe she wasn't taking into account the immense distance, relatively quick pace, and HUGE BACKPACK i'm contending with. what i have found is helpful (besides copious rests), is making my strides shorter when i start to feel fatigued, keeping my feet pretty much right beneath my hips. i don't know what the science would say about that.
• and i know what you all want to hear about! you want to hear about me crying on the long island roadsides! well i did! i admit it! i figured i'd have a day or two where the physical toll of the journey overwhelmed me, and today WAS THAT DAY. it was a loooooong distance day and my body was just shot by the end of it. i started my day at 6:30 and i'm writing this at 10:12. i was just sore and tired, and i realized that there was nothing to do about it besides keep walking. which led to my roadside meltdown, which definitely may have involved me saying, "i don't want to walk anymore! i just want to lie down!" dear elena of the past, it's me - elena of the future. don't cry, we are lying down.
  
• the BIG news! (as big as it gets around here) is that tomorrow was supposed to be ANOTHER long day of walking.... not only that, it was supposed to be the LONGEST day of walking for the whole project. however, taking into account how my body feels and the amount of time i'd be on the road (my rule is to be tucked in for the night before sunset, and i broke it by a little today!!!), i have made a BOLD decision to cover tomorrow's mileage.....by bicycle! yes, you heard right! tomorrow i'll be mounting the old iron horse (do people call bikes the iron horse or is that just bizarre lol) and spending the day moving at a (slightly) faster pace! i'm hoping this will give me time to recover for my last few days!
  

as always: i will check in tomorrow! just in case: does anyone know any good bike repair shops in suffolk county? hit up my instagram and keep an eye on my story!

 

day 7 is in the books! is that an expression? on the books? one for the books? either way, it is DONE and wow, what a delightfully varied day it was. here are some thoughts from day 7!

• i did finally manage to get into my airbnb in brentwood which was GREAT because it put me very close to my first interview of the day - less great were some very thin walls with a flatmate having a loud phone conversation til almost midnight and a cat who took a poo in the middle of the bathroom???? i guess you really never know what you're going to get!
• i had my first interview quite early in the morning, and it was absolutely lovely! i got some more really thoughtful gifts for the road - some candy (which i ate almost right away), a tiny first aid kit, and a travel sized sunscreen! so thoughtful!
• i had a delightful route which utilized a train station stairway overpass as a shortcut! WOW DO WE LOVE A SHORTCUT! we love stairs a little bit less, but it wasn't so bad. i really don't know how the map knew that i could walk over the stairs though...is that someone's job, to just go around and note better access routes for pedestrians? i bet i could contribute after this adventure!
• speaking of better access routes - today was a GORGEOUS GORGEOUS sidewalk and pedestrian walkway day! i very rarely (if ever!!!!) had to hug a random shoulder or tromp through some gnarly grasses. hooray!
• but also: boy oh boy was it sunny today! i mentioned this in another blog post (or maybe one of the video blogs i keep only halfway doing because i get busy....walking....) i am SO glad to be doing my project right now. a bunch of people were worried about it being too cold at the end of april, but honestly i think i would have been boiling any closer to summer!
• another reason i'm writing this blog post so late is that today was a TWO interview day, and i had to do a bunch of walking in-between! the interview happened in the evening, which is pretty unusual for this series. i kind of like to get them done in the AM or early PM so i can walk or rest afterwards during prime daylight hours, but this was how the cookie crumbled today! another great interview and so great to see everyone in person!!!
• the elena is a dodo moment of the day came right as i arrived at my hotel. i didn't want to jinx myself by thinking too hard about it en route but i did an AMAZING job of fastening my ankle brace today. somehow it just had all the right support, for ONCE my heel wasn't rubbing and i was like, "dang, yes. i am GROWING as a hiker"..........and then i TRIPPED on the FLAT HOTEL HALLWAY and twinged my ankle!!!! insert crying face here! i'm hoping that resting overnight will help, and i do have a more heavy duty brace that i can swap to, but dang - what a way to close the day.......and tomorrow is a BIG mileage day!
• to close off with some good news: i'm in a hotel tonight and this one HAS free continental breakfast tomorrow! i am going to eat........so many pancakes.

i'm hoping that i'll be able to do a blog post tomorrow but i have an EXTREMELY long day of walking, so don't worry if i can't get to it or if it comes at a bizarre time! you can always check my instagram for (slightly) more regular updates. see you soon!

it's day 6 and i am halfway through my project and halfway through my project and NOT halfway through my project. i'll get into the nitty gritty of what that means exactly down in my thoughts from day 6!

• for some reason nearly every single clock in every single place i've stayed has been wildly inaccurate. that lead to me thinking that i'd woken up at 4:15 AM and was pretty distressed that i couldn't fall back asleep....before i checked my phone and realized it was 6:30. a much more respectable hour!
• some of you may have been wondering about the resolution of my airbnb drama from yesterday - never fear! when it became pretty clear that my host wasn't going to have the place ready until well after 7 PM, my parents gave me a micro grant to book a nearby hotel. i even got to see my dad and my dog for a little bit since they were coincidentally in the area i was stranded! a nice night overall.
• only complaint was that there WAS NO FREE BREAKFAST probably due to the pandemic???? but they had a little area open where you could PAY EXTRA for very bad breakfast. i got a tea before i realized and had to "charge it to my room" to disguise the fact that i'd assumed it would be included. lol whoops!
• a gorgeous gorgeous day for walking, huh? a lot of people were kind of worried about me doing this in april but i have to say, i think doing it in the summer would have been a tiny piece of hell. it's not too hot, but as i walk - especially on a gorgeous day like today! i get sweaty fast! 
• only one interview today and it was great! i am obviously enjoying speaking with everyone and hearing about what they do to make long island a better place, but i also feel like i'm learning a lot about video and content creation! i won't say it's all going exactly perfectly - once in awhile i'll set up a wonky frame or forget to account for the fact that someone may gesture or lean - but for a first effort, i'm enjoying it immensely! i'm also meeting a lot of teams and coworkers and getting to explore some pretty cool new places!
• took an accidental detour on my way to my airbnb for the night and ended up (somehow????) on something a bit like a wooded trail! for a moment i REALLY felt like i was backpacking. i had some vague funny thoughts like "is this how people feel on the adirondack trail???" (which obviously: no) but it was nice to get off pavement and into nature, even for a mile or so!
• speaking of mileage - today was a light day, which was awesome! tomorrow is pretty light as well - i've got two interviews but luckily the in-between seems ok. we had to do some last minute location scrambling due to unexpected covid situations, but that's the reality of the times! i'm looking forward to a good rest tonight, and a full day tomorrow!
• last and perhaps most notably: there is a cat at the airbnb i'm staying in tonight! i really REALLY wanted it to come sit with me, so i sat on the floor and pretended not to be interested in it until it did! it's a super cute cat and very funny - i was worried that i might be too stinky to make friends, but then i looked over and it had SHOVED ITS ENTIRE FACT INTO MY SNEAKER. i was like, "wow your constitution must be STRONG, little cat!"

okay! time for stretching, snacks, and probably watching some run bts episodes. i listened to the new psy song that suga produced like 2,700 times this morning. what a bop. 

wowie zowie, i walked A LOT today! i'm actually still about two miles from my resting place for the night, but i'm having a bit of an airbnb odyssey (thus the evocative blog title) that i'll get into down in the daily bullet points. here are some thoughts from day 5:

• today was my first longer distance day since day 1 and WOW it was.....okay? hard? it's always difficult to quantify how i feel on these longer distance days because everything feels like a moving target - my destination, my body, how much i need to pee, whether there is or is NOT a sidewalk...
• speaking of sidewalks: we LOVE a sidewalk! we love them. now, what i do not love so much is how sidewalks just end??? indeterminately??? i can't tell you how many times i'll be walking along and suddenly the sidewalk will just....stop! i feel like i'm in a perpetuating rendition of the shel silverstein poem "where the sidewalk ends" because DANG i could tell you where every sidewalk ends in nassau and suffolk county!
• speaking of suffolk county: I AM IN IT! I AM IN SUFFOLK COUNTY! i crossed the border near melville and it was super anticlimactic lol! unlike when i crossed into nassau, there was no sign so i realized (somehow) through my limited knowledge of long island geography and the appearance of some sort of western suffolk county public works facility. i also ALMOST made it to the long island welcome center - i was on a service road that went RIGHT by it, but there was a big ass fence which kept us from meeting. woe, and woe again.
• speaking of woes: my body is SORE!!!! today! i woke up feeling pretty good which was amazing, but my body definitely took a minute to adjust on the road. i am continuing to be deeply in love with my compression sock, my ankle brace, and ibuprofen. truly gifts from supreme beings. i'm also DEEPLY grateful to jeremy for letting me offload a few of my belongings and gifts that were adding weight to my backpack - thank you, jeremy!
• speaking of the kindness of strangers: i am currently writing this blog from a wendy's instead of the airbnb i'll be staying at for the night. due to some unknown mix-up, my host hosted someone else last night and wasn't able to clean the room for my stay today. initially, i'd told them i planned to arrive around "dinnertime" (although their check-in is listed as 1 PM on airbnb). so when they told me they'd need some time to clean the room, i said i could delay my arrival til 6PM (friends i have been sitting in this wendy's since 3:30 PM now lol) and got a message back saying i might need to do a "LATE CHECK-IN." i am TrEPidACIouS about the vagueness of the word LATE in that sentence. hopefully it's not LATE late because - 
• speaking of lateness: i'm still going to bed pretty early and waking up pretty early. my dreams for this evening post-walk were mostly to take a long hot shower, continue my fierce battle with my heel blister, stretch my aching limbs, and lie as flat as i can until my interview tomorrow. hopefully, a lot of that can still be achieved just, you know...........later.

i'll check in with you again tomorrow!!!! see you then!