Election, Afterglow, Love

I cried last night.  So many victories in U.S. politics.  Marriage equality in Maine, Michigan, Maryland, and Washington.  President Obama re-elected.  There are many things he supports that I don't, but in my mind he is mostly a good and true leader and human being, doing the best he can with our (in my mind) pretty f'd system.  Tammy Baldwin, the first openly gay senator (and a woman!) was elected.  Elizabeth Warren is still on the senate.  I know this is a good thing because my brilliant liberal friends rejoiced when it happened, but in all honesty I know little about her.  PBS and Planned Parenthood are safe from Mitt's slimy paws.  Vaginas everywhere breathe satisfied sighs of relief.

from Barak Obama's facebook page

In California, we had ballot measures I cared about (and understood!), such as repealing the death penalty (this failed, and I am the tiniest bit dumbfounded.  Maybe because I am not a fan of killing?  Maybe because many innocent people end up executed?), ramping up trafficking penalties (this passed, which I am not happy about.  Why?  Read this article.), funding for schools (prop 30, the better of two initiatives, passed!), and the labeling of GMO foods (failed).  

After the election, I was elated.  Obama in office, gay marriage accepted in several more states (this takes our count up to 11!), a gay lady in on the senate, and a surprisingly gracious concession speech from Romney.  

from HRC's facebook page

This country, the subject of so many of my rants, made some big progress last night.

It's something, but we have more to do.

Big corporations control our food (not to mention our farmers) and our tongues are too slow to ask where it's coming from, what's in it.  There are still 49 states without basic civil rights for many humans in our population.  We're still engaged in wars, using too much oil, wasting so much of our food (if we can call much of what we eat "food"), and largely ignoring climate change and global warming. 

I want to be part of the solution.  I don't want a life on the sidelines, armchair activism and apathy, charges to which I both plead guilty.  It's not as though I am living a particularly terrible life, impacting our world in a negative way, but I want to contribute lovingly and passionately, live in this community of human beings and work toward positive change.  And yet.  Sometimes I stop and wonder.  How much of the earth is in our hands, how much of this world, so weary, rests on our shoulders?

from www.lunapresenceyoga.com

29

Do you want to improve the world?
I don't think it can be done.

The world is sacred.
It can't be improved.
If you tamper with it, you'll ruin it.
If you treat it like an object, you'll lose it.

There is a time for being ahead,
a time for being behind;
a time for being in motion,
a time for being at rest;
a time for being vigorous,
a time for being exhausted;
a time for being safe,
a time for being in danger.

The Master sees things as they are,
without trying to control them.
She lets them go their own way,
and resides at the center of the circle.

-Tao Te Ching

Is this the answer, or just some kind of copout?  What is the difference between acceptance and apathy, detachment and denial?

I might not have the answers to these questions, but a similar answer keeps coming up for me, and it has to do with (surprise, surprise) the heart.

from peaceflash's facebook page

In these times of uncertainty and triumph (have there ever been any other times?), may all of our actions spring from that still-beating place.  May we all tend to our hearts and the earth—and easy on the roundup, please.  The seeds have been planted, they are our true nature, and these seeds need our careful cultivation.  May we sing to what we sow with a mind set on peace, and bloom in deep kindness.  May we be the instruments of this peace, marching ever onward and inward.  And may love, of all things, prevail.  Please.  Let us let this great love prevail.

throwing stones

I spent quiet week with family in Pretty Marsh, Maine.  No internet, just walks through the woods, books in front of the fire, and mornings by the shore, throwing rocks with Charlie.





Charlie finds a spot to sit and then points for me to sit beside him. We throw tiny pebbles and the sounds out of his mouth are equally pebbly - small and cute.  He starts reaching for larger rocks, big hunks that sit firm on the shore.  He grunts, pulling, and gestures for me to unearth a large chunk of granite, but we leave it.  They are perfect seats.

"Jessica, will you please put the camera down so we can throw some rocks already?"

"Plop!" we say as rocks sink into shallow waters.  The light makes lace of the water, smooth goldenrod seaweed and crusty barnacles illuminated.  

I skip shards of shale, and sing "Hop, hop, hop" or usually just "hop, hop" because they don't skip very far.  He echoes my sound effects, and adds his own commentary, "Oh wow!"

Mussel shells are sailboats, and we push them off into the salty drink.  "Row, row," he sings.  It is is favorite song this trip.  He begs for it desperately, and sometimes to the point of tears.

Sitting by the shore with this little guy, one of my favorite tiny (for now) humans, was just what I needed.  Kids are natural meditators, all senses engaged in the present moment.  The gentle laps of water, freckled stones, and squishy seaweed kept us where we were -- sitting very still, at the shore, throwing stones.

 I chase the light down the dock and see what my camera will capture.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning says that earth is crammed with heaven.

And here, in Pretty Marsh . . .

I agree.


For more information about our family vacation spot, visit www.prettymarshrental.com and www.facebook.com/PrettyMarshPartnership.

Where is the Softer World?

I found the softer world this summer.  Have you read that poem, by Mary Oliver, called Mindful?


Mindful
by Mary Oliver

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant -
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

. . .

I found it in this book I am reading, a book left in a mailbox for me (along with wasabi nori and a sweet note) from Megan.  Twelve by Twelve is essentially about a guy who does international aide work in developing countries for a decade and then comes back to the States and into "the flat world" as he calls it.  He feels so lost, unsure of how he fits, and if he wants to fit.  He hears of a woman, a doctor, who takes the lowest pay possible, and lives in a 12 x 12 dwelling in the woods.  Her life on this wild land, only 5% of which is developed, is simple.  She invites him to live there while she is away, and he says yes.  His life changes, or he does.

I am in the middle of it, still, but it resonates so much with me.  Because this summer, I found a softer world, the world Mary Oliver speaks of, and the thing is -- it's not just softer.  It's a different world.  Different than this one anyway.  I know many people who are living good lives in the States - rich, deep, fulfilling lives.  I know it's possible to live well in many places, but I don't really want to do it here in the concrete and capitalism.

This country makes me itch.  I don't want to slather calamine lotion on it.  I don't want to scratch.  I want out.

And this softer world?  It really exists.  I found it on the farm in Italy this summer in the wild chestnut forest.  This cheese-making, unschooling, self-sufficient family taught me so much.  When you are sweating, in the sun, eating from the garden, drinking from the stream, chasing little wild mostly-clothes-free kids around green grass, squishing green chicken poop with your feet, your mind just kind of drops and something else takes residence.

I suppose I sound naive now, cliched at the least; all this talk about another world, a softer world, but I had it in my hands, my mouth.

I didn't come back to the States with the intention of staying here permanently, but I don't want to trash my precious moments here writhing in angst and running in place.  It is taking every ounce of my will-power not to waste away my days doing internet searches, back in the squirrely space of searching and seeking.  This is a dangerous space, as I can attest to from experience, because you are likely to say "Yes!" to a plan that isn't in your heart.  The ego, a true Type A, loves plans.  Titles?  Even better.  Anything with a capital letter (Teacher, Writer, Girlfriend, Student) is just fine.   And is there a schedule to go with that?  Now we're talking.  When I start creating spreadsheets, I'm calling my sponsor.  That'll be you, K. 

These days my steps are careful to non-existent; my mind, as Anne Lamott says, is a bad neighborhood I try not go into alone.  Although right now I am on the edge, ready to chop my hair off and hop on a plane, I know enough to wait.  Sometimes you trust and jump (like when I quit my job), sometimes you trust and sit.  It doesn't score you as many cool points, it doesn't ease your itchy skin or jittery limbs (at least not at first), but nothing ever got any worse when we just sat still and breathing.

I came home with a vision for my life and now is the time to trust in that vision, trust that life will move through me, that life is moving through me.  So even though my breathing isn't going as deep as my heart, there is one thing I know for sure.  It's not where I'm going (sorry guys), but it's that my feet?  Yeah, these beat-up things from hoofing around Italy this summer -- they're meant to be on earth.  Soft, cakey earth.  Just gotta find the right chunk.  

. . .

Or, an alternate version of this entry might look like this:

AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

Triple Citrus & Ginger Marmalade

Something about living in the middle of a citrus orchard inspires me to get into the kitchen more often.  The navels weigh heavy on the trees, round, scarred, and warmed from the sun.  The wind is lemon-scented, if you can catch it through the dust.  Whether I gather my fruit from the ground or the tree, it feels so good to know where my food comes from, to know that my hands were the hands that picked it.

Looking out this morning, at all those fallen lemons, at our pomelo tree weighted with round blushing fruit, I was inspired to make marmalade.

I've never made marmalade, but I grew up around my mom making jams, and we made jam this summer at the farm in Italy.

My first thought was to make a pomelo marmalade.  It's a little late for pomelo, but jam is forgiving.  I remembered that Marica from Wasabi Honey Bee posted a recipe for Grapefruit Marmalade and Pomelo is in the grapefruit family, after all.

But here's the thing.  I love to cook and bake, but I don't really follow recipes.  This is why this entry does not include a recipe.

I used Marica's recipe and photos as well as a recipe for Ginger Apple Marmalade from Sunset as my inspiration, but the rest was that magical blend of intuition and experimentation.

Gravenstein apples sat in the fruit bowl, and as far as the citrus?  Steps away in the orchards outside the house.

So out I went, searching for fallen fruit.

Using apples meant that I didn't need to include pectin, as apples contain it naturally.  I added freshly grated ginger and a couple of cloves, but mostly I let the flavors of this fresh fruit sing. 

After peeling, chopping, grating, simmering, and stirring . . .  Behold!  Marmalade!  

It set up on this cold plate with a perfect jammy consistency.

Now I've heard a few things about how you know jam is "set" -- run a spatula through it and if the line stays for a moment, it's done; if the jam is smooth on the back of the spoon, it's done; when it stops bubbling, it's done.  

I didn't try any of these things; I just knew.  Of all the ingredients in the kitchen, this one is perhaps the most important: trust.

So there you have it, or there I have it.  Triple Citrus & Ginger Marmalade.  Tart, sweet, slightly bitter and with the spicy warmth of ginger.  I will be making marmalade again soon.

Ode to Teaching English in Hungary

School starts tomorrow in Szeged, only this time, I'm not there.

Looking back on my time as an ESL Teacher in Hungary, I don't know how I survived.

198 students.  4 schools.  Language barrier.  Lack of formal ESL experience.

But then, I remember these faces, and I know how I made it through.  Fueled on the smiles of these kids, lit by their light, their spirit.

  

There were days I sat on the desk, legs swinging as I sighed and bit the inside of my mouth, just waiting for the yelling to stop.

There were moments of quiet work, or confident conversation.

My students wore blindfolds, created mazes from desks, and gave directions.

We sang karaoke (popular songs: It's My Life by Bon Jovi and Rolling in the Deep by Adele) and played games.  I have never played so much Pictionary.  I have never had so many conversations about 'free time activities.'  And don't get me started on hangman.

I have mixed feelings about teaching, as you may have deduced if you've been reading for awhile.  The "agenda" makes me uncomfortable and frankly, teaching is hard.

But one thing I have no mixed feelings about?  The kids.

So this year I am gone from their lives, but I will always remember the year we spent together, chair-hurling and all.

Because how can you do anything but love faces like this?

Plane Rides, Dad-Crushes & Nausea (I'm Home)

Kathryn can attest to my dad-crushes.  Call me cliched or naive or a sucker, I don't care, but any time (ok, every time) I see an adoring dad with a little kid, I go a little weak.  Taken deeper, this says something about a) family roles, b) gender roles, and c) my relationship with my own father, but let's keep it light for now.

On the 13 hour flight from Rome to LAX, I sat one row over from a cute pair of boys (one 2 years old, one in his 30s).  Not everyone will agree with me, but kids on planes are better than most in-flight entertainment.  I understand the wailing or incessant seat-kicking can be aggravating, but I try to be the person on the plane who will smile understandingly, even sympathetically, when it happens.  I was a kid on a plane once, too.  Mostly I just love to be around the spirit and energy of kids, and on the inside I am also wailing and kicking my feet too.

With dark brown eyes and choppy blond-brown bangs (his haircut was skater-boy-gets-a-mullet), this kid was cuuuute.  He vroomed his miniature toy skateboard on the food tray -- when he wasn't perched on it, smiling proudly.  His legs, olive brown and bare in cargo shorts, squirmed and kicked, or simply curled under him as he re-arranged magnets in his activity book.  His dad wore the forest green airline blanket around his head like the Virgin Mary while his son snuggled into his white t-shirt for a nap.  Occasionally, he growled, energy busting through seat belts and circulated air flow, then wailed, his eyes red and salty.

By the end of the flight, we were buddies.  Playing peek-a-boo, systematically stacking airline cups, he told me what he saw out the window.  We spoke in broken Italian, our language skills even.  "Papay," he touched his dad's hip but his eyes were on me, "Papay."

"Mmmhm," I smiled.  "Papay."  That's your dad.  Patient and quiet, with dark eyes and hair, he held something back.  But he was so sweet and strong with his son, his love fierce and tender all at once.

As we exited the plane, the 2-year-old in his dad's strong arms, he smiled at me: "Ciao ciao!  Ciao ciao!"

"Ciao ciao!" I sang to him with a small wave, and his dad smiled at us and wished me a good trip.

. . .

The birds are singing through the citrus trees outside, and the clouds are those delicate little wisps stretching out on top of the mountains.  I am grateful this is one of my alleged homes, the mountains grounding and the trees full of promise, sweet blossoms bringing fruit.

It took Charlie approximately 5 minutes to warm back up to me, this baby I held and giggled with for so many months.  He walks now, making animal noises (most indiscernible), and I am surprised by how much has changed, and how much is the same.

Charlie and Jess, 2011

I guess this is the same sentiment for how I feel about "being back" . . . how much has changed, how much is the same.

. . .

Isn't air travel amazing?  Not the food, or the lack of leg room, or the fact that announcements in airports are always, always, always fuzzy and garbled.  The more important they are, the less coherent.  But in hours you can be in another time zone, the songs of another language dancing in the air, different characters on signs.  

It blows my mind.  Gone are the days of cargo ships and covered wagons.  In hours we are transported to another culture, but the hitch is that yes, our bodies are there, but everything else can take awhile to catch up.  And yet, it's scarily easy to plug back in to the role you were in before, perhaps a role you were desperate to leave.

So here I am in the States, but just like last time, I am not 100% here yet.  It's a slow process, coming home, but my mind keeps trying to rush it.  What will I do next? is a favorite question and I haven't even been home for more than 48 hours.

And then I remember this quote, which speaks so eloquently about some of the truth of coming home to the feeling that everything stood still:

“Coming back from [a trip overseas] means re-entering a world you have known and lived in, but doing so without feeling the charm you might expect at returning to a former life. You had left that world behind in the hope it might be thoroughly transformed in your absence, but nothing of the sort has occurred. It got along quite nicely without you and it adjusts quite smoothly to your return. People and things conspire to make it seem as if you had not been away. … People are a thousand times more preoccupied with their own little lives than with the strangeness of another world. You are best advised, then, to land discreetly, to come back politely into this world keeping anything you may have to say — along with the few sights still gleaming in your memory — strictly to yourself.”

–Jean Baudrillard, 1986

. . .

Upon our descent into LAX, I felt the waves of nausea.  Houses and swimming pools, streets with cars (how many cars with only one driver?), four-lane freeways.  I was landing, back into suburbia and capitalism and consumerism.  Little Boxes (or, this is an awesome cover/music video by Walk off the Earth) came into my head and stayed there.

Where do I fit in this crazy world, which is go-go-go, which is concrete boxes and checkboxes on lists, which is big box stores and big ambitions?

There is value in carving out a life for yourself, making a home, and all of that, but I am worried the carving is going to give me carpal tunnel.  Is it possible to carve deep enough into this concrete world to hit earth?  I want the soft dirt and hard rocks, the red river rocks; I want the rush of river and sunshine on my shoulders.  I want to live simply and aligned with my values.  I don't want to take on outside anxieties or judgments.  I don't know how all of this is possible.  Something about living in the U.S., about just being in the U.S., makes me feel that everything is less possible.  The gleam flickers to a fade, my vision is less expansive, my breaths shorter.

But this is my challenge, facing these fears, living these questions.

Being more than the roles, living in an expansive space, transcending boxes and boundaries.

Going quiet enough to listen to the rhythm of my heart, which is always guiding me.

Remembering to be grateful for all that I am experiencing in this moment; remembering that this moment, if I live fully in it, will carry me through to the next.

And the next.

And the next.

Here is to the next moment.

Wait, no, scratch that.

Here's to this one.

In Which I Go Home

Yep.  I'm going home.

Well, to one of my homes -- the ranch in California.  For that ever elusive chunk of time, a bit.

Two more nights in Szeged, and then I get on that plane.

Why?

More travelling felt like running.  I am tired of travelling and touristing, tired of castles and cathedrals, gelato and old heaps of rocks.

Okay, I'm not really tired of gelato.  Is it possible to get tired of gelato?  I highly doubt it, but just to be on the safe side, I would be happy to do some research.

Another adventure is in the works, but I can't divulge anything just yet.

Until then, avocados from the ranch, dips in the ocean, and trips to woodsy Maine and Oregon.  Seeing my family, the little ones not so little anymore; from wriggling in a lap to walking.

But before I am Stateside, I am saying my final goodbyes to Szeged.

Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to go eat all of the chocolates I bought as gifts (sorry) and look through photographs of my old students while I cry.

Or pack.

Yeah, maybe I should do that.

Either way, wish me luck.  I'm gonna need it.

The Truth about Teaching

After 45 minutes of agony with my 8th graders, I walk next door into Peter's classroom to return the English-Hungarian dictionary that I borrowed.

"Was everything okay?" he asks.

Usually I lie, or downplay, but today I don't even smile.  "No."

"I thought so."

......

It is my first day back to school after a week of sick leave.

Maybe this is why I have less patience than usual.

Or maybe, it was Norbi, who hoisted his chair, ready to throw it at Tamás.

It's a good thing I am paid to run intervention.

Some days, I teach.

Other days, I swear under my breath and fantasize about throwing them out the window.

I could lasso them, I think, bundle them all together.

But that would take the pleasure out of tossing them one by one...

......

My voice is hoarse, and not just from yelling at children.  I am recovering from a throat infection, from days of being so sick I didn't leave my bed.  After doctor visits in broken English and hungry hours (2 of them, while I was fasting for my labwork) of waiting to give my blood and urine, I was diagnosed with a UTI.

Have you ever had one?

Don't do it.

It feels like (and pardon the imagery, but there is really no other way to put this) a dagger shoved up there.

If you have to do it, keep a couple of things in mind.  Don't schedule it at the same time as your menstrual cycle.  And do yourself a favor -- get up early enough to take the bus to work.  Or walk.  Yeah, do that.  Whatever you do, don't ride your bike.

It feels like a lot of things, none of them good.

......

Earlier in the day, I saw Peter in the teacher's lounge.  "Have you given the students grades?" he asked me.

At most of my schools, I give the students monthly grades and this factors into their overall grades for English.  At this school, on my first day, Peter told me that I could give them grades if I wanted to, but that I didn't need to.  I didn't give them grades.  I have never given them grades.

Today, however, four weeks before school is out for the summer, I am asked to give them grades.

Can this be reason #3149 that my job is really hard?

That, and I was never given an official class roster for any of my classes.  Which means I don't know my student's full names.  Do you know how many Balazs' go to this school, only a couple of whom I teach?  Lots.  So how exactly am I supposed to give them grades?  Beats me, but apparently Peter is confident I'll figure it out.

Oh!  And can reason #3150 be that I teach a total of 198 (one-hundred and ninety-eight!!!!) students split between 4 (four!!!!) schools?

Thanks.

......


Quick!  I need summer!  And quite possibly shock therapy.

Thanksgiving and things to come

Part one: Chicago.

Exploring the city, I am a tourist-in-training. I stop to take countless pictures, wander aimlessly, happy to be lost amidst all the architecture.

The library.

Statues that caught my eye.

The city as seen through "the bean."

Color-changing brick and city-scape.

And then, Part two: Thanksgiving with my brothers, Steven and Tommy, and Matt.

the menu:

Apple-tofurkey stuffing with homemade rosemary bread

Garlic mashed potatoes with broccoli coulis

Buffalo Brussel Sprouts (deep fried deliciousness)

Pumpkin Soup

Deep Greens warm salad with cranberries and cumin

Homemade cranberry sauce

Kale chips

And for desert, pumpkin and apple pies and a warm mulled wine.

Pumpkin soup and kale chips in the making.

Homemade cranberry sauce.

Lady Guadalupe watches over our table.

Buffalo Brussel Sprouts and spicy dipping sauce.

Tommy's plate (photo: Tommy Jackson)

And after the extravagance of Thanksgiving, a simpler meal: gluten-free pasta with balsamic-glazed brussell sprouts and basil with a side of braised turnips.

Part three: Hungary.

My plane takes off in a matter of hours.

I have a lot, as always, to be thankful for.

The next time I write I will be 8 hours ahead of myself, in a new apartment, city, and country.

Am I prepared?

I like to think so.

Although, the only Hungarian words I know by heart are apple, berry, and no.

So on the plus side, I can say this: "No apple-berry!"

I bet you can imagine the downside.

But my plane ride is 15 hours long, so baby, I've got time.

Cheers, guys. See you on the other side.

Figures

Number of days until I get on that damned plane: 5

Number of lego figures gifted to me so I "won't forget about" my 8-year-old cousin: 1

Number of times I had to remind my 10-year-old cousin this was the final goodbye so she should really turn off that Nicki Minaj video she and some friends had recorded so I could hug her goodbye because I had to leave now: 4

Number of glasses of wine consumed this evening: 2

Number of things left on my to-do list: 1746.3333333

Number of things completed from my to-do list today: 2.3333333

It does not look good, ladies and gentlemen. It does not look good.

So Many Ghosts

My neck hurts from craning in both directions; forward, back, forward, back. My departure is encroaching and the pressure it is mounting. I am looking with eyes stoned from too much computer time with trip preparations, and I am looking in every direction. I am forward-thinking to me in snowy Szeged, teaching English and stumbling through sentences in Hungarian, to my holiday break in Italy. I am imagining new futures, but I can't stop looking back to the past.

The past is a herd of ghosts, haunting me. They slither out of every box I open and drawer I slide unshut. They wrap around me while I sleep, burrowing into my dreams. I have anxiety dreams about teaching English or catching planes, but I also dreamt up an old boyfriend last night. This one is old-old, from when I was 15. Maybe this is because I found his sweetly punk-rock mixed cd he'd made for me while I was sorting through binders of old discs, but it haunted me. I am chilled to my bones with guilt and nostalgia, coulda-beens, shoulda-beens, never-beens. I think about everything I've ever done that I am not proud of, everything I never did that I wished I had.

When is it time to call the code? My lungs are tired from all this air I'm pumping into something that I already lost, that died to the past, that can't live with me in this time period - my present. How long am I going to press my sorry lips to all these cold mouths? How long am I going to act out of guilt?

And how do I let it go?

How do I let it go?

. . .

I am near-tears in grocery stores, holding Charlie tight to my chest and breathing in his baby scent. This may be is drastic, but I feel like my life is about to end, and everything that happens is happening for the last time. Sentimental in a supermarket, that's me this week.

As I drive on the 126, I breathe in the chipotle processing plant, that sweet smoke rising. I look out at the rows of lemon trees, at the ocean, and I think how far I will be from all of this, from my citrusy home.

This time, leaving feels much harder. Does this say something about my life? That I have more to lose? Or maybe, I shouldn't have scheduled my departure date to close to my menstrual cycle.

When I tell people I have a week and a half left before I leave, they ask how I feel. "Mushy," I say with a small laugh and watery smile, but maybe that adjective isn't quite right. I have a feeling my fire is burning down because I'm about to leave camp - I'm all coals and ashes, disintegrating, a slow burn before the atmosphere swallows me up again.

. . .

If I had to pick one word to describe how I am feeling: grief.

And then the ghosts arrive.

It's such a smooth B&E that I can't call the police. There is no hard evidence of their presence here, just my prickly skin and eyes, the stubble of last night's nightmares, a sinking feeling of guilt.

I don't know how to kick them out. I don't know what to do with them.

Wait, that's not true.

I know what to do, I just don't want to do it.

They come up when I am sifting through old letters; they are old hurt, failed relationships, actions of mine I wish I could erase. I packed them up, boxes sealed tight and labeled, and they sat, waiting for me. As soon as my knife made the incision in cardboard, I felt the bleed.

They had been gathering strength from their hurt, from unresolved tension, from being ignored and abandoned, and now they are here in my life with a vengeance.

I tried with slippery sweaty palms to collect them, to shoo them into a rubbermaid I thought would contain them.

So here I am, kneeling in front of the box, fingers on the edges, trembling.

On the edge, trembling.

"Okay," I say, and just like that, my fingers lift. "Okay," I say, "you are free."

So when will I be free?

. . .

Stickers and Squirrels

Today I purchased 4,984 stickers.

Do you think that perhaps I am over-packing?

...

The last time I traveled (and coincidentally the first time I traveled), I wasn't very well equipped. I didn't really know how to backpack, how to travel. I learned on the spot, through trial and error. I am embarrassed to say that I thought buying a piece of luggage (and this was a huge, boxy piece of luggage) was a good idea when it became clear to me, three months into my trip, that my 32-liter backpack wasn't cutting it. My Swiss hostel-mate at the time told me it was a horrible idea, but I didn't listen. What do you know, it was a horrible idea. Thanks Suzana, for trying to warn me.

After trying to lug it on and off of buses, hoist it into the trunks of taxis, and bang it up flights of hostel stairs, I ditched it. I decided to buy another backpack. It was taller than my first, and my sleeping bag fit strapped on the top, teetering threateningly. The problem was, my first backpack was shoulder-cut for a woman's body, and I had to wear it on my back. This meant that the taller backpack hugged my front, the top of the bag covering my face, the sleeping bag bonking me ever so often. I had to tilt my head to the left or the right in order to see where I was going. The drunken backpacker, that's what I was, bobbing and weaving in order to avoid injury or accident.

Ginna, Kate, Jess taking off for our hitching adventure through Ecuador and Peru. This pack on my back eventually moved to my front.

This time, though... this time I am prepared.

Maybe over-prepared?

For instance, I bought packing cubes. And 4,984 stickers. I feel like hardcore backpackers, off-the-beaten-path travelers are not allowed to buy packing cubes, or anything from Rick Steves. I have done both. What has become of me?

Is it possible that the fact that I am leaving for Hungary to teach English for six months (and with the intention to stay gone for a long time thereafter) has set in? I have my suspicions that I am part squirrel, gathering nuts, preparing for a bitter winter in a land unknown to me. It seems a natural reaction, to try and control anything you can when you're entering a situation that feels out of your hands. I, like most humans, prefer for my hands to be sticky, so that nothing can slip through their claws and clutches. So my hands are busy scribbling lists and entering my credit card information for countless orders of things I (think I) need.

Maybe I am still a drunken backpacker after all, sedating myself with sharpies, bulk toiletries, and stickers.

Ok, Universe. Have it your way.

Did you know I am leaving 2 years to the day to when I came back from my travels in South America?

I did not plan this, at least not consciously. Weird, right?

But this serendipity will all seem normal to you soon. This is how my life works. The ebbs and the flows, while often jarring, start to make sense once my head is above water again and I can see how everything is connected. Someone up in the sky is very clever, showing off with synchronicities and serendipities, sneaking signs into my life that leave me shaking my head and smiling.

I was all set to fly stand-by to Europe (with an unknown arrival, how stressful/adventurous), making my way to Italy to see my friend John from Peru (who might be in love with me, but that's another story), and hang out on farms.

And then . . . I discovered I couldn't stay with John. There went my landing pad. Now I know the only constant in life is change, and I didn't sign up for this adventure in Europe to have a strict itinerary and have "everything figured out"-but come on, I needed something to arrive to, a soft place to land. And I'm not exactly picky. I was happy to land with John, a guy I met at a street fair (the same one who invited me to the chicken fight), a guy I have spent a total of about 15 hours with, a guy who might be in love with me. Does this seem stable or secure? Maybe not, but I'm not picky, and it would have been enough. When he told me I couldn't stay with him (but he was looking for a place for the two of us to rent. Again, another story), I was floored. Or at least tripped up.

There went my small piece of stability, the cord that tied my dreams and visions to a tangible reality.

I freaked out and ate lots of ice cream while watching the Food Network . When Giada De Laurentiss came on Food Network, I had to change the channel. When she made "bru-skett-a" it killed me. I couldn't watch her scooping ricotta and stirring the penne. I couldn't listen to how one bite of this dish would take me back to the rolling hills of Tuscany. So I watched Chopped re-runs, and I ate more ice cream, and the depression [in the couch] grew deeper.

I tried to think of the bigger picture. I tried not to lose hope. Eventually, I put the spoon down and turned the TV off and slowly shuffled over to the butter-yellow piece of posterboard pinned to my wall. I had pinned it there a week or so ago, and it just sat there in all its infantile possibility. Eyes glazed over and ass numb, I began a vision board, gluing photos of sunflowers in Tuscany, writing intentions, and delving deep into the dreamy wildness of my desires for this adventure.

I also e-mailed an Osho meditation farm in Italy. I said, can I come? They said, Yes!

Ok, I was set again. I was back to listening to Italian during my commute to work and watching Giada whip up Italian culinary wonders in minutes. The farm was a go. Processing olive oil and processing? I was in. Trance dance, open communication, and working in the garden sounded a dream. Hey, it was my dream. I've got a vision board to prove it. But then again, nowhere on my vision board was Hungary.

Oh Hungary. You sneak-attacked me.

In the pits of my despair I had an intuition that said "Hey, go look at the job listings on Dave's ESL Cafe." I found a teaching position in Hungary. I e-mailed. The American director lives in Portland, and in my e-mail I mentioned Yachats, asking if she had heard of it. She had, she loved Yachats, it is her favorite place on the coast, and the Hungarian director visited and loved Yachats, too!

Did I want to come teach in Hungary?

Why yes I did.

So the ball got rolling, but it picked up speed faster than I imagined, faster than my brain could keep up with. Oh my tired brain, which has been knotted up in intricate prioritized to-do lists and the frenzy of pre-departure missives and missions. Can I just take a minute to say, Thank you Brain! Also an honorable mention to my guts.

Anyway. I wanted to come. I just didn't want to come so soon. Mary Rose e-mailed and said a position had just opened in Szeged in a university town, I could share an apartment with another teacher, did I want to start right away? It was tempting; a roommate, a beautiful city, teaching positions in the city and in outlying villages . . . But I was going to this Osho farm! Wasn't I? Wasn't I?

Oh, Universe. You clever fox, you. You knew what was happening all along. You lured me with the safety (and let's face it, potential torrid affair) of staying with John, and then when you got worried I was eating so much ice cream I would develop diabetes, you teased me with an Osho farm. You know me too well, don't you? You had me at "trance dance." But it was all a lie! A grand deception! A facade that hid the truth until I was good and ready.

Because guess what?

I said yes. Yes to Hungary.

And then guess what?

I got an e-mail from the Osho farm, who, even though they said Yes before, said No.

Ok, Universe. You win. I'm going to Hungary.

Thanks for everything, I will send you a postcard.

And in conclusion: Holy crap, guys! I am going to Hungary!

Drifting

It has been so long since I've updated. With a "fresh new look" (but still the same great product!), I am ready to use this blog again. And you know what that means: I'm going somewhere! Doing something! Something you might care to read about. I hope.

But first, what have I been up to in my absence? Met a boy, got all domestic, graduated with a BA (Education and Spanish), undomesticated myself in order to travel, un-boyfriended, and eventually made my way back to this blog. I was in Oregon for a year soaking in the rain and my small town, and this past year I've been in sunny, citrusy California. Just itching and enjoying life, alternately. Up to the usual activities: camping, brooding, knitting rectangles.

So anyway, off I go. Or, almost. I leave in 6 weeks on November the 22nd. Wanna guess where? I'll reveal the answer soon.

In the meantime, here are a couple of shots that capture this golden California summer:

Sunflowers are such sunny summer creatures.

Welcome to Harmony, pop. 14

We had to pull over to capture this view on the way to Big Sur.

Letting the light shine down in Sequoia.

Hume Lake, King's Canyon