tomorrow morning i move in to my dorm room.
ive never lived away from home before - just one summer program for 3 weeks, another for 2 weeks, and another for 5 days. those hardly count as self-sufficiency and independence, yet they were some of the best experiences of my life.
but leaving home was difficult. i love the way the light slants into my room in the morning. i love the sound of the palm fronds as they brush against my window in a breeze. i love the clutter of my desk, the overstuffed perfection of my bookshelf, and especially my bathroom - silent, pale green, an oasis i designed for myself, a clean and lovely place to sigh.
i love walking down to the apple tree by the horses, watching them nudge up against the fence as i pick a few just-ripening tart green apples and eat them there, their chalky flavor just perfect, just home-grown enough to be real, to be mine.
i love my family, and the animals of our home, and the overstuffed sofa and TV always on CNN and something baked and delicious sitting on the granite countertop waiting to be tasted.
tomorrow something different is to be expected. i have 7 boxes, a car stuffed to the brim with bed, bath, & beyond supplies, and 2 bursting suitcases. im not sure how to feel yet - its been a long summer at times, short at others. i didnt do enough yoga or running or writing or reading, but i spent a lot of time with my mom and dad, a lot of time hiking, and a lot of time sleeping (although its never enough). they're sad to see me go; i feel like im ready - or i am now, after a week of vacation together and 2 months of non-stop company. in a month i may feel differently.
what i am looking forward to most is meeting people, finding my people, finding my friends. making my friends. learning the places to go. falling asleep outside on a grassy lawn, and doing homework in a real live library that awes you. exploring the city around me and going to yoga class with strangers. going to parties. getting drunk. getting kissed. kissing someone back. staying up late, waking up early, going to bed early, waking up late. having breakfast in the common room; going out for pizza; going out for lunch; going out shopping; taking the train; talking, talking, talking, being silent, being happy, being stressed, writing, going to class, learning, exploring, conversing, thinking, thinking a lot, being philosophical, being myself, finding myself, learning to know myself, learning to know other people, learning, learning more, learning to love, learning to live, learning to let live.
i dont know if college can give me this but its time i set out on my own. i could wait, but i can't. it is now; i am not going to stop this adventure. i will embrace it.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
boutique
as a girl, i am conditioned to say: "i love shopping. i love clothes. i love shoes. i love handbags. i love makeup and the color pink; i love lace and ruffles and leather and magazines and trends and pretty pouting lips."
some of it rings true. i do like to look at shoes. i do like to run my hand along a rack of nice clothes and feel the whisper of soft fabrics murmur to my palm. each outfit is a new world.
i am intensely self-conscious, and aware of it. i have moved past the awkward teenage stage of perpetually pulling down my tank top and sucking in my stomach; now i simply know: if i don't think i look good, i will duck my head all day; if i don't feel quite right in what i wear, i will be less myself. i like the adventure of putting together "outfits" or whatever you want to call them.
but do i like shopping? in short: yes. in actuality: no. i hate malls. i hate outlets. i hate warehouses and thrift shops. i'm not trying to be snobby, but the mass production, mass consumption, mass purchase, mass experience: it does not fit. i do not want those clothes that do not fit, even if they are 70% off. i can't see myself in a giant warehouse with fluorescent lighting and refrigerators on aisle 12.
today i went shopping, and i bought nine items exactly. they were at full price. but i did not get a headache from trying to visualize me in the clothes, and i did not need to compete with a rack of discounted cashmere. i had only to look in the soft-lighted mirror.
that is shopping that i do love - the kind that reminds you of who you are and who you want to be on soft-lighted days.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
moonshadow & starlight
it's a beautiful night. really beautiful. the air is soft, the sky is clear, the full moon hangs like a headlight over me. it shines smoother and steadier than a star. it reflects loveliness. on the ocean a river of molten silver light catches the waves, and each gentle hump and furrow is defined by moonshine.
i would like to walk for a while - i don't need much - but my knee aches, and now is not the time. i can wait.
i will miss these big moons, the soft air, the very faint sweet salt smell that drifts to me, the look of yellow torchlights throwing enticing shadows on pale stucco walls, the envy of myself - i envy myself! - for being here. the houses are so beautiful, and so are the palm trees, so many kinds, king and queen and pineapple and sago, all silhouetted in that perfect way that happens at night. it's a beautiful night, and i'll miss it.
i would like to walk for a while - i don't need much - but my knee aches, and now is not the time. i can wait.
i will miss these big moons, the soft air, the very faint sweet salt smell that drifts to me, the look of yellow torchlights throwing enticing shadows on pale stucco walls, the envy of myself - i envy myself! - for being here. the houses are so beautiful, and so are the palm trees, so many kinds, king and queen and pineapple and sago, all silhouetted in that perfect way that happens at night. it's a beautiful night, and i'll miss it.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Magic and miracles
I believe in magic and miracles. No, that’s blatantly untrue. If honesty is my policy, I don’t know why I kid myself into being a mystic. I’m not a mystic. I’m a realist and an idealist – fate is undeniable, work is better. It’s not about choosing the right turns in the path, it’s about creating the trail you hike, calling forth the stinging nettles that catch on your clothes and prick your shins as you brush by, bringing shape to the shady pine that allows you a moment’s quiet rest.
I want it all. I believe in it all – the possibility of it all. There is not one destination, one peak to hike to, but we meander through glorious meadows, traverse granite cliffs, pick our paths through dense forests. And each place is its own meaning. Each sight is new and divine. Divinity reigns not splashed from above, but soaked into the fiber of the roots, wafting carelessly through the quiet air. It is here. We are here. We find beauty in wildflowers, but the blackness of burnt wood is lovely too, if only because it is real and ours and seen. When you see, it is all yours. When you smell, it is with you. When you love, it is you. There is nothing bad or wrong, only the truth, always the truth, the way we put things together, two and two, our world, our rugged climb to anywhere in particular, our fate decided not as finality but as the experience. Will you be happy everywhere, or will you climb and never be satisfied with the humble rock, the dust rising in clouds, the simple tree – imperfect, like so many others, indescribable except in its absolute normalness – will you be OK with that? That is your fate. Are you OK with that? I’m OK with that.
I want it all. I believe in it all – the possibility of it all. There is not one destination, one peak to hike to, but we meander through glorious meadows, traverse granite cliffs, pick our paths through dense forests. And each place is its own meaning. Each sight is new and divine. Divinity reigns not splashed from above, but soaked into the fiber of the roots, wafting carelessly through the quiet air. It is here. We are here. We find beauty in wildflowers, but the blackness of burnt wood is lovely too, if only because it is real and ours and seen. When you see, it is all yours. When you smell, it is with you. When you love, it is you. There is nothing bad or wrong, only the truth, always the truth, the way we put things together, two and two, our world, our rugged climb to anywhere in particular, our fate decided not as finality but as the experience. Will you be happy everywhere, or will you climb and never be satisfied with the humble rock, the dust rising in clouds, the simple tree – imperfect, like so many others, indescribable except in its absolute normalness – will you be OK with that? That is your fate. Are you OK with that? I’m OK with that.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
i am not a failure
i won't consider myself a failure - but - i am a shoddy success.
i set goals that i rarely complete. i make lists that never get entirely crossed out. instead, the to-do turns into the to-do-later becomes the will-do-tomorrow.
my desk is cleaned, each paper stacked or filed, pens put in drawers, post-its stuck in a pile. then it fills, necklaces draped over thank-you cards, scissors dropped onto newspaper clippings, pens and papers strewn unceremoniously over its once-blank surface.
my closet is organized - hanging clothes are arranged in rainbow order; shoe boxes are stacked underneath; t-shirts on the shelves are each folded the same direction and stacked by color. then mess ensues, jeans tumbling onto discarded tops, sweaters spilling out of drawers, belts thrown from their rightful hooks to rest like stiff reminders on the floor.
i expect better of myself, but that is not the truth of the matter. truth is balance, and the balance here is perfection and imperfection, clean and not clean, blank and cluttered. the balance here is my own way of vacillating between extremes, and that is where i belong. so i am not a failure. i am not a success. i am just so, just right, just in between.
i set goals that i rarely complete. i make lists that never get entirely crossed out. instead, the to-do turns into the to-do-later becomes the will-do-tomorrow.
my desk is cleaned, each paper stacked or filed, pens put in drawers, post-its stuck in a pile. then it fills, necklaces draped over thank-you cards, scissors dropped onto newspaper clippings, pens and papers strewn unceremoniously over its once-blank surface.
my closet is organized - hanging clothes are arranged in rainbow order; shoe boxes are stacked underneath; t-shirts on the shelves are each folded the same direction and stacked by color. then mess ensues, jeans tumbling onto discarded tops, sweaters spilling out of drawers, belts thrown from their rightful hooks to rest like stiff reminders on the floor.
i expect better of myself, but that is not the truth of the matter. truth is balance, and the balance here is perfection and imperfection, clean and not clean, blank and cluttered. the balance here is my own way of vacillating between extremes, and that is where i belong. so i am not a failure. i am not a success. i am just so, just right, just in between.
I believe
I believe in an overstocked fridge, all things beautiful, and a moment of divine transcendence
I believe in homemade pizza, yoga, and friends
I believe in routine and spontaneity
I believe in books, and
I believe in balance.
I believe in homemade pizza, yoga, and friends
I believe in routine and spontaneity
I believe in books, and
I believe in balance.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Looking Back
As I begin to sort through the photos of graduation, of prom, of all these landmark events - milestones, as they call them - that have come to litter my desk, I find I need a safe place to store them. A photo album.
I have one photo album of childhood pictures. It is thick and oversized, with extra leaves, and pink with hearts and ballet slippers dancing on the cover - which matches the early theme of the photos: dusky flash pictures of me in pale tights and leotard, shiny dark hair pinned in a flyaway bun, at a ballet recital, on the stage, with red-eyed friends as we bare our small white teeth to the camera and turn up our noses.
Then there are a few baby pictures, toddler pictures, preschool pictures, birthday pictures - sun-drenched, happy, sweet. My hair was dark and stick-straight then; my freckles dusted my nose; I played dress-up on a daily basis and had very vivid, very wonderful imaginary friends.
That album is full. Those pages are pasted with my memories and my childhood. It was lovely, but prom does not - can not - fit on those pages.
Yet I've never been a good scrapbooker. I can't even keep a proper journal. My best journal, which I kept religiously in Egypt, was lost on the plane to Prague (I cried for a while over that, as it was filled with ticket stubs and musings on the Middle East that I really couldn't replace). But the careful patience to look over my photos, to prettify and position my past into a way that's appealing to reminisce with - no, I'm too lazy for that.
So I settle for half-making iPhoto picture books that never get published and stacking the physical, glossy copies into neat squares and shutting them in my bottom drawer. I don't mean to relegate memories to the dark corners like this - I have plenty of framed photographs lining my bookshelves and my fireplace mantle - so I wonder what this lack of drive says about me. That I don't care enough to make an effort to add borders to important moments? That I can't make the time to chronologically order my pictures and decorate with stickers?
Maybe it's that I'm a forward-thinker. I take things, accept them, move on. My mantra this year has been to embrace the forward momentum, the next thing, to avoid dwelling, to live in motion. That conflicts with celebrating minute details of moments long gone, this is true. So maybe it's time for me to make an effort to embrace the photographs and the memories and all of it and to live in them, for once, instead of looking forward. This is perhaps an ideal thing to do with a lazy summer. I'll buy a photo album and I'll make a high school picture book and I'll have something to be nostalgic with.
For once, looking back might be the right thing.
I have one photo album of childhood pictures. It is thick and oversized, with extra leaves, and pink with hearts and ballet slippers dancing on the cover - which matches the early theme of the photos: dusky flash pictures of me in pale tights and leotard, shiny dark hair pinned in a flyaway bun, at a ballet recital, on the stage, with red-eyed friends as we bare our small white teeth to the camera and turn up our noses.
Then there are a few baby pictures, toddler pictures, preschool pictures, birthday pictures - sun-drenched, happy, sweet. My hair was dark and stick-straight then; my freckles dusted my nose; I played dress-up on a daily basis and had very vivid, very wonderful imaginary friends.
That album is full. Those pages are pasted with my memories and my childhood. It was lovely, but prom does not - can not - fit on those pages.
Yet I've never been a good scrapbooker. I can't even keep a proper journal. My best journal, which I kept religiously in Egypt, was lost on the plane to Prague (I cried for a while over that, as it was filled with ticket stubs and musings on the Middle East that I really couldn't replace). But the careful patience to look over my photos, to prettify and position my past into a way that's appealing to reminisce with - no, I'm too lazy for that.
So I settle for half-making iPhoto picture books that never get published and stacking the physical, glossy copies into neat squares and shutting them in my bottom drawer. I don't mean to relegate memories to the dark corners like this - I have plenty of framed photographs lining my bookshelves and my fireplace mantle - so I wonder what this lack of drive says about me. That I don't care enough to make an effort to add borders to important moments? That I can't make the time to chronologically order my pictures and decorate with stickers?
Maybe it's that I'm a forward-thinker. I take things, accept them, move on. My mantra this year has been to embrace the forward momentum, the next thing, to avoid dwelling, to live in motion. That conflicts with celebrating minute details of moments long gone, this is true. So maybe it's time for me to make an effort to embrace the photographs and the memories and all of it and to live in them, for once, instead of looking forward. This is perhaps an ideal thing to do with a lazy summer. I'll buy a photo album and I'll make a high school picture book and I'll have something to be nostalgic with.
For once, looking back might be the right thing.
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