Gone to the Moon

It's been a while.  I feel like I've been to the moon and back, or at least Vienna.  The full moon swelled up in my stomach and energy field, which has been heavy and buzzing.  I had a birthday, which fell on the full moon, and a really weird birthday weekend.  I have been coming down slowly from the silver moon, just floating through space, thinking about how weird existence is.  What else is there to think about?  My trip back down to earth has been slow, but meanwhile on Earth I have shit to do, so I am working on re-planting my feet here in Szeged.


Speaking of the moon . . 


                               


There is too much to say, and lately I have been feeling so frustrated about this canvas of the internet.  Our words to one another are so condensed.  Have you noticed how we have become greeting cards?  We leave out the "I" and say, "Hope you're doing well" but without room for the question of "How are you doing?"  I am guilty of this too, especially on facebook-land.  Sometimes I feel like because technology gives us this gift of connection regardless of geographical location, we forget the significance of how far from one another we are and what this means for our life experiences.  


I guess I am not being so ballsy, but to get ballsier what I am feeling is that some people think that because I am facebook it erases the magic of what I am doing being so different.  Is this an entitled thing to think or say?  Probably.  I guess I am missing the magic of what it used to mean (or what I think it used to mean) to be far from the people you love, for talking to your family and receiving postcards to be a treasured moment.  Our communication is so distilled.  From profiles, where you can choose carefully which aspects of yourself to display, to status updates, where you can pick through all the garbage in your mind and find the gems, to "Hope you're well" messages . . . We're all simmering in this giant internet-speak stockpot and I think the juices are disappearing.  We might too.


But enough of that.  Here are a few words and photos from my life lately. 

We started our vanilla extract.

We made gulyash.

Birthday mandala.

Kathryn and I went into the hippie store downtown on my birthday, and this was my birthday mandala on their calendar.  I asked the shop owner, a young guy with his hair twisted back, what it meant.  His English was limited, and the translation was priceless.  "Never can die your soul.  Even if body to die, nothing stopping the..." he pauses, puts on a serious face, and then crazy eyebrow wiggles, "immortal soul of man!"  We all laughed. 

Also, Attila, A.K.A. Mr. Confident, gave me the best birthday present ever.  Wine (which he pre-chilled before he brought over, classy stuff), plus this: 

Bonus points if you can tell what the gift is.

I also made a pail-list, which is smaller than a bucket-list, and with a smaller time frame and list of things to do.  This is the beginning.

Oh!  I got a bike.  Today I biked home from school while tender-looking snowflakes stung my eyes and brought a smile to my chapped lips.

And teaching.  Oh boy, teaching is fun, funny, challenging, wild, weird, wacky, frustrating, heartening, exhausting, energizing.  All of these words apply to my life on a whole at different times and I feel like the waters moving through me are changing too rapidly for me to put my finger on where the current is taking them -- I can't quite pin down how I am feeling or doing because the minute my hands are holding onto something, it changes in my fist into something else entirely.

Is this what it means to go with the flow?

It's wintery here and we've been making the apartment more and more our home (photos coming soon), and it feels so nice to be snug and cozy while the snow crusts the trees outside our window.  I saw one small child today walking with his mom, who held onto the hood of his jacket, and he took tiny careful steps while looking intently at his shoes.  "I have been there," I thought with a smile.  Isn't our life kind of like that?