Joshua Tree National Park

The following were taken at Joshua Tree National Park with a Minolta SRT-101 on 35mm film.

Is it ever really waiting when we're so caught up in other things?

I know that Advent is supposed to be all about waiting for Jesus' birth. I know it. For years, I've watched the wreath be lit once a week until Christmas; I've lit it myself. Yet the whole ritual hadn't even crossed my mind until my first visit to church last Sunday--already with so few candles left to light.

I accidentally stumbled into my own sort of Advent, only instead of candles, it was with writing--or reading about writing anyways. I decided a while ago that I was going to read one chapter each Sunday from Annie Dillard's The Writing Life. I thought it would be a good reminder to write and why and how and even if I still couldn't, I had this little book to tell me that was all right--sometimes you just can't write.

At only seven chapters long, it seemed an easy commitment; in less than two months, the book would be over. So every Sunday evening, I sat down in my chair for a short discussion on writing. It didn't take me long in December to realize that the last chapter would fall two days before Christmas. I saved the last chapter for tonight, like the lighting of the last candle on the wreath.



The past few days have had a lot of this waiting: when will I get to see my friends? when will the "holidays" be over? when will I get to Arizona? In much more short-term waiting, though, I made ice cream today.

It was a real spur-of-the-moment thing. I was shopping for ingredients to make some holiday nom-noms, and I saw SoyNog on sale: 2 for $5. What the heck, why not! I've been wanting to try it anyways. Once home, I poured a glass to sip as I unpacked my groceries. I stood leaning against the counter with the glass in one hand, almost to my mouth, and the carton in the other, close to my face as I read the side panels. Like the free patterns on packages of yarn, I tend to ignore the recipes on the boxes of food, but this one caught my eye: SoyNog ice cream. I perused the ingredients, and shockingly, I was well-stocked on all of them.

So I whisked and I stirred, and I heated to a boil, and I watched it thicken and bubble like pie filling. I let it cool, and read the rest of the instructions: "Chill in the refrigerator for four hours. Finish with ice cream machine as instructed." Uhh, I don't have an ice cream machine. This is why you should always read the whole recipe before starting to cook, but come on, in school, we were always told to scan a textbook's chapter before reading it, but no one actually did it.

Luckily, of course, my friend, Google, came to the rescue: "how to make ice cream without machine..." What does it require? Time, patience...waiting. The gist of what I read was basically that when the cream freezes, little ice pieces freeze first, separating from the creamy part. An ice cream machine keeps it freezing while getting that slow-churn action going to make it freeze evenly, not giving the ice pieces a chance to take the lead. How to make it without a machine? Take it out every half-hour and stir it. Okie doke. So I did. Seven hours later, I think I have--what is as close as it's going to get to--ice cream.



Of course my evening trip to the Christmas Eve service interrupted the half-hour intervals, so I had to cheat a little on the stirring. For some reason, I expected a traditional Christmas Eve. I pictured a piano as the main instrument, and the dimmed lights of the theatre would be perfect for the candle-lit exit of "Silent Night." That was what I have always known, so I didn't expect any different. When the service ended with a catchy guitar riff solo-ing its way through "Joy to the World," I was a bit thrown off. Then, to exit the theatre into a packed shopping mall with fake snow and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" blaring from every angle just totally threw me off.

I guess the good thing about the whole Christmas Eve scenario is that it is new. This is my life now. I'm not at a dwindling Presbyterian church on a hill in the woods of Southwestern, PA. I'm not sitting next to my mother or keeping my peripheral on my cousin to check his grip on his lit candle. I'm not watching "It's a Wonderful Life" with my dad and grandma or exchanging gifts with my sister. I'm not getting up tomorrow and going to Derek's house.

I am in Seattle now. I still have to remind myself of it. I walked out to the festive, lit streets of downtown and listened to the shuffle of people. I felt like a mouse in a maze, trying to avoid running into people. The bus was my cheese, and I made it just in time.

When I got off the bus, my neighborhood was eerily quiet. Usually, I can hear the chatter of people in the distance or a dog's collar jingling against its leash or drops of rain falling from the tips of leaves and branches in a passing breeze. After the bus turned off, and the hydraulics puffed out their quick sigh, there was nothing but my breath and my steps. I looked at the moon, half-hiding in thick clouds, seeming exceptionally small and distant. I imagined the street lamps were candles and sang "Silent Night" until I couldn't remember the words.



I've been really fighting the idea of holidays this year. For a while, I had convinced myself that I was going to sit at home by myself and pretend like it was Boxing Day, and Christmas was a passing thought. The idea seemed appealing until I was out of work, spending most days home in the same patterns of knitting and reading because apparently my body decided that it didn't need to sleep until the hour hit well into tomorrow. Not only was the dull pattern forcing me to keep track of the days, but almost everyday, I got a Christmas card in the mail. Each time, I was surprised and happy: someone remembered me, even though I'm all the way on the other side of the compass.

Try as I might, I couldn't fully resist the holiday spirit. The problem with embracing it, though, is that then I have to also accept the other side: the absence and the grief.

Several years ago, our Touring Choir at school sang in a December service called "The Empty Chair." As I sat and reflected on how blessed I was that all of the chairs at our table were full, I was deeply moved by the sad faces staring back at the choir: the people who had one less place-setting that year.

Today, I think about a lot of things and a lot of empty chairs. I think about the families in Connecticut who are missing their little ones. I selfishly think about Derek. I think about how even though other people are grieving such deep, still-bleeding wounds, I find myself picking the scabs as if it could get me any closer to him.

I think about how we're all at the same table. How many people can gather around for Christmas and honestly say they aren't missing someone? I wonder if my family misses me at their table. I think about how some people don't even have a table or a meal or a family to celebrate with. Celebrate. Celebration. Christmas is a celebration of life, of birth, of light, and yet I have all of these big, sad feelings hovering over me like tonight's cloudy moon.



As I walked home from my bus stop, I looked at the houses with their bright lights and colorful decorations. I thought about how it seemed not too long ago that they were decorated with Halloween. I thought about how not too long before that, I had never even seen these streets.

Now the waiting is over. It's Christmas: Eve & Day and day-after. It still doesn't quite feel like it. Maybe because there were guys wearing shorts outside the other day. Maybe because, like last year, I've been focusing my thoughts on Arizona. Maybe it's because the only sign of Christmas at my apartment is the array of sparkling cards tacked to my wall. (Even though I really hate decorating, Christmas at home wouldn't feel right without the tree and the same ornaments every year and my mother's ga-zillion cat decorations: cats in scarves and sleeping cats and cats hanging from garland.)

I've decided that you know you're an adult when the most exciting thing you can do for yourself for the holiday is to take your sheets to the laundromat. That and cook. I don't mind laundry, and I like to cook, so I guess this "adult" thing is alright.

So I've stopped fighting the fact that it's Christmas. It's here. No more anticipation. No more waiting. Yeah, it's not a Christmas I have ever known before, but I'm trying not to let my head get too clogged with thoughts about trying not to think about the things that are actually on my mind and just let the day be and (try to) accept the adjustments.

Now I'll snuggle into my clean sheets, with that last spoon of SoyNog ice cream that didn't fit in the Tupperware still on my tongue, and I'll watch "White Christmas," thinking about our annual White Christmas Party and thinking about my friends in Waynesburg and Pennsylvania, and the people I miss there and elsewhere and the people I miss no matter where I go. And that all still sounds so sad, and I don't mean for it to. I'm counting my blessings, and they are many.

"When I'm worried and I can't sleep, I count my blessings instead of sheep, and I fall asleep counting my blessings..."

transition

I seem to be caught in a hamster ball rolling down a spiral staircase with about twelve landings on the way. I'm going and going, bouncing and thwacking my way down, then there's a nice gentle roll for about a month, then its klunk, thwap, hugh. I'm not really sure where I am right now. I've grown so dizzy that it's starting to feel the same.

What I mean to say is that even though I've been in Seattle four months now, I'm still not settled. I'm still trying to find my place and feel a bit stuck in the patterns my life here has been taking so far. I haven't had a consistent job. I haven't even settled into my apartment such that it feels like "home"--it's just a place that I live (& hide). All of this has kept me from branching out and making more substantial friends (as in, I've met people; we are/were friends, but now we don't talk or see each other because I reached the end of that landing). I guess I'm mostly referring to how comfortable I felt at my last job, and the anxiety of roughly rolling into the next, once again, alone.

I find it kind of amusing, actually. I really like to be alone, but then I get to a point where I say, "I NEED PEOPLE," so I go to a coffee shop or ride the bus, and I watch people, and I kind of soak up their energy, their communication, their interactions. Socially re-fueled, I return to my basement to sit and knit and read and write.

In my last interview, I was questioned thoroughly on why a writer would be going for a position in business. "If you want to be a writer, you should go sit in a solitary room on Bainbridge island. This isn't a writers' environment," I was told. I thought for a minute, mostly of Annie Dillard in The Writing Life and how I can only handle so much of that lifestyle. It's not every writer's life. "I need people," was my response.

Yet my "people" need has thus far been satiated through the act of being a wallflower. I'll admit, at first, I really tried to settle in to the community. I went to the Farmer's Market and spoke briefly with the vendors; I tried to make small-talk with everyone. It's quite exhausting, actually, especially when people are not willing to give anything back beyond "I'm well, thank you" or "Yes, the weather is nice today." I suppose that's how I became a leech--I can pull pieces of other's social lives into mine, the way my hamster would reach his tiny claws from the holes in the plastic ball, grabbing any crumb or dustball that he wanted, and he was happy.



I watched a documentary oh-so-cleverly entitled Happy. The researchers spoke to people from many countries and asked what they wanted out of life. When nearly everyone, anywhere, answered "To be happy," they dug further to see what made people happy in different regions and lifestyles. A man in the slums of India was happy to be a rickshaw driver and come home to his family. The people of Okinawa, Japan talked about how they achieve happiness that has allowed them to have the highest census of people aged 100+ in the world, mainly through being united; one example they gave was their funeral ritual--they have a community urn where all of the ashes of all of the dead from all of neighborhoods go because they believe they are all one people. A family in the bogs of Louisiana enjoyed the simplicity of being together and enjoying alligators and fresh-caught fish.

Then there were the un-happy: the over-worked, the people under pressure. Japan's standards are so high that many people die from stress, and they have the highest suicide rate (which, I think, shows the concentration of the cities considering the status of Okinawa). They even have a word that translates to "death by overwork": Karōshi. Do I need to explain where the general American population stands?

I've been thinking a lot about the happiest people. Statistically, they live in Denmark in what equates to communes. They have very small living spaces, but live with several families, who all take turns cooking and cleaning; the children all have friends who they live with and treat like family; the parents can spend more time with their children without having to worry about the duties of daily living since everyone takes turns. It seems ideal. I like to think that I would love it, but there is the solitary part of me that says, "I like to visit, but I like to come home and be alone too." It's an odd balance.



And the scales are a little off right now. I really mean it when I say I'm not settled in Seattle. I knew when I moved here that no matter how much I liked it, this would not be my end-point. I don't know how long I'll be here: maybe a year, maybe five or ten. Woah, hold the reigns: ten is pushing it. Maybe five years. Maybe. Regardless, I'm not here for get cozy, take-your-coat-off-and-stay-a-while kind of living. Actually, I'm not really sure I have any expectations; I just want to be happy where I am, and when I am ready to move on, I will. (This mostly translates in my mind to: when I am ready to move elsewhere for grad school.) My hamster loved time to roll around in that yellow plastic ball, but when he was ready to move on, he'd bump into a wall and stop, just sitting there. Right now, I'm still rolling.

Because short-term to me is staying here for "a couple years" (whatever that means), I find it difficult to define "home." I always like to think that it's wherever you are that feels like a place you can define yourself in, like when I was in Italy, I felt I knew me there, as in Waynesburg or Mamont. Here, I'm still trying to find the edges; I'm coloring way outside the lines trying to find how I fit in here in the city, in this independent life outside of college.



I love baking. I love making a mess out of flour, watching it pouf into the air and letting it smear onto my itchy nose or fronts of my jeans. I love working dough. I love the range of smells from raw to warm. Despite all of this, I have not done any baking since I moved here. Part of me thinks it's because I'm vegan and don't feel like experimenting yet. That's a ridiculous excuse; I have plenty of time and recipes, and I've certainly been testing out the cooking end of it and with much success. The real reason I have not baked is because I cannot bring myself to buy flour. To me, flour needs its own little canister home so that it doesn't make unwanted poufs when the bag is bumped. To give it its own home is to settle in--I cannot imagine myself moving to a new place and taking flour with me.

That may sound ridiculous, but for some reason, it keeps echoing in my mind when I think about baking. You don't get to the bottom of a canister of flour and rinse it out and take it with you--you add another bag; you don't finish a bag of flour. And a row of canisters sitting across the counter, just waiting to be opened and turned into something delicious is one of those home-y feelings like sleeping in your own bed after you've been away or walking intentionally to avoid the creaks in the floor that you know are only in certain places or the weight of a door that you know how to shut just right to make it silent or maybe it needs a rough pull to even close at all.

This place doesn't have those things: it's not my bed, but I like to sleep in it; the floor creaks, but I feel more like hiding by avoiding them, trying not to be seen; the door is light and hollow and has to pulled until you hear the second click so that you know the number pad is secured. It makes impersonal beeps when you unlock it and always sounds like the door itself is cracking when you shut it. Finally, we're not allowed anything on the counter--no canisters here unless kept in the cupboard. To add to that, in with the mess of flour is the magic of never really getting it all cleaned up; it sticks in the corner-edge between counter and wall; it lays lightly on the rug; it smears when it's wiped up, never totally gone. I love that about it, but everything here must be completely clean all the time. Who has the energy to take the life-proof from the white dust that builds a home through snug bellies and a well-lived-in kitchen? What a sorry fate for the welcoming, comforting flour.

Sure, they're all just excuses. Nothing is really stopping me from buying a bag of flour, keeping it in my cupboard, and just plain baking. If I wanted to bad enough, I would do it, I suppose. But I find myself frequenting the local bakery, picking up a few goods and being on my way, mooching off their yummy treats to satisfy my want for a warm oven and a crumby pastry as I walk into the sweet-smelling shop--it is the same pinch of that unsettled feeling that I seek to temporarily please in going to public places and calling it a social life.



It took me four months, but I have finally dragged myself to church. Church, for me, is one of those sensitive issues. You can invite me and leave the card on the table for me to pick up when I'm ready, but you cannot drag me there, and if you try to tell me that I should go, I won't just because then it was your suggestion.

Like a little kid's first day at daycare, I feel shy and not wanting to play with the other kids, keeping to myself. If you try to talk to me or coax me into a game, I sink further inward with a pouting lip and a yearning to go home to my mother. But if you let me be shy and inward and pouty and watch the other kids have fun, I'll want to have fun too, and I'll choose it.

So I finally chose to go to church. (Though I have to say, I almost bailed because I hadn't told anyone I was going, then, the night before, my sister suggested I should go, and part of me said, "Fuck it. That's it. The deal's off. I can't go now because someone said I should, and I'm not going because someone said I should; I'm going because I want to." I told you I'm really sensitive about church. That or just stubborn.)

Regardless, I sucked up my childishness and went. The small crowd immediately pinned me as a newcomer--everyone knew everyone else. Suddenly, I was surrounded by smiling faces telling me their names and welcoming me. I was ready to run. I don't remember any names because I was so worked up in trying to play down the title "church" because all I want is relationship with God, not some overdone show that doesn't dig beyond the surface. When the service was over, and I realized that the message hit the right points and connected with the way I think and believe, I knew that I had better try harder to remember those names.

It scares me, remembering people's names at church. Then they have some sort of accountability towards you; they'll know if you skipped out. And knowing people at church means building friendships and meeting people beyond a surface-level "Hihowareyou." And having a regular church is one more step towards settling in. It took a while, but it happened. All of this is on my mind because I have Community for church tonight, where the people who live in the same neighborhood here in Seattle have a weekly get-together. I'm nervous yet excited yet afraid.



The hardest part about settling in to a new place is recognizing that it means leaving the old one behind. Part of me doesn't want close friends because it's such an obvious step away from the life that I knew, and I'm not ready to have a new "best friend." People aren't replaceable. It makes it easier to push others away, but of course that's not what I want. I want to settle in. I want to make room for new friends and a church family and cookies and pies. I'm just not totally ready yet, and it's taken me four months in the city to at least recognize that. I'm not trying to avoid people. I'm not too lazy to bake for myself. I'm just not there yet.

If you see me in the store holding a bag of flour, don't say anything. I'll probably be standing in the aisle, hugging the thick block to my chest, staring at the shelves. Maybe I'll put it back and try again later. Maybe I'll take it home and put it in my cupboard. The next battle will be, of course, to open it.

art-un-rav-eled

Go around back to take a knit.
Come front to purl.
Go around back to take a knit.
Come front to purl.

This pattern has echoed through my past two evenings. I am ribbing. I am meditating: a lesson in patience.

This is my first time making a whole project with double-pointed needles. This is my first go at the rib stitch. This is my first time using 2.75mm needles and 3oz. yarn. I feel like I am making miniatures, when really, they're only mittens.

I tell myself that I need to be dedicated to finish my projects in time for Christmas. Every year I do this; I wait until after Thanksgiving to start holiday gifts. If I start any sooner, it just feels too rushed and unreal. I don't even look forward to Christmas. I just like to knit. Because it is December: month of late nights curled in a chair with a blanket and needles and yarnyarnyarn.

Go around back to take a knit.
Come front to purl.
Go around back to take a knit.
Come front to purl.

I started this mitten last night. I was lying on my  bedroom floor, trying to hold the thin needles without breaking them or poking out one of my eyes: I was close, trying to see each thread of each stitch pass through. The tips of my fingers began to turn purple--words of wisdom: lying down offers poor circulation when knitting. But I couldn't move; if I moved, I might drop a stitch or break a needle or lose my pattern. Thus far, starting on double-pointed needles is the hardest part, keeping the first row intact despite the obvious stretch between needles.

Then it kept going. The rows got easier as the thread got tighter between the needles, and the four main ones formed a square which birthed a circular cuff tailing behind: now I'm getting somewhere. I was able to sit up, even to hold the needles off my lap because I had figured out to adjust each so that the stitches would stay.

I noticed a lapse in the pattern within the first three or four rows. I was about 3cm in and so exhausted from starting that I wasn't about to turn back. Let's see how it looks later; maybe it won't be so obvious. Sometimes you really do have to just see how things work out: maybe you can trust yourself to write in pen, but sometimes, it sure is handy to have an eraser.

I kept knitting until I had a full 7cm cuff. Tomorrow's objective: beginning the stockinette stitching.

Go around back to take a knit.
Come front to purl.
Go around back to take a knit.
Come front to purl.

You guessed it: I haven't started the stockinette stitch yet.

This morning, I looked again at my work; I was proud that the ribbing looked so nice and was adequately stretchy. As I turned the piece in my hands, I got to those jumbled few stitches in the first rows. Not too noticeable... I turned it again and again. The splotch of mistake more apparent each turn: the imperfection on someone's face--a zit, a crumb, a stray hair-- that you can't help but look at as you talk to them. It just won't do. 

I resolved that tonight when I got home from work, I must start over, putting me one precious day behind.

Go around back to take a knit.
Come front to purl.
Go around back to take a knit.
Come front to purl.

Sometimes, when I'm focusing really hard or concentrating so much that I start to feel stressed, I will grit my teeth and clench my hands and feel my chest tighten--all reminders of how I lack patience, like how I always look to see how many pages are left in a chapter or seconds in a song and how the countdown is excruciating: by the end, my jaw sore, my fingertips white.

For this project, I am determined to push the "deadlines" aside and just let it become a relaxing rhythm.

After supper, I sat in my chair and looked at the cuff that was done so far. But it's so nice; there's only a tiny glitch. Maybe I could set it aside just to remember how pretty my first ribbing was. Maybe no one will notice if I keep going. But I knew that I would notice, and the farther I knitted, the harder it would be to accept the error.

There was no sense in wasting time thinking about it. I began to unravel the cuff in quick, bumpy rows.

This is one of the most challenging yet beautiful aspects of creation, of art: letting go. You make something beautiful, and you let it go. Sometimes it is by giving it away--the gift, as Lewis Hyde reminds. Sometimes it is by destroying it--as in pottery when you find an air bubble in the clay such that if you were to fire it, the explosion would destroy the pieces around it too, and you have to just flatten whatever beautiful object it was even though you worked hard on it.

And yet the beauty reciprocates. Sure, you sold a painting or a pot; you smashed the clay; you unraveled the yarn, but now, you get to start over. You get a blank canvas; you get a clean wheel; you get a full skein.

Go around back to take a knit.
Come front to purl.
Go around back to take a knit.
Come front to purl.

I am about 2cm in on my do-over mitten. I feel good about my decision to start again. Not only does it give me a chance to fix my mistakes, but it offers me yet another lesson in patience: casting on those double-pointed needles again.




I remember my Ceramics professor in Italy, Isabella Fazzo. I can see her: a thin tank top to cover her curved shoulders and tall physique, horn-rimmed glasses in bright purple, soft wrinkles still new to the corners of her eyes. She said she woke up one day, after years of being a chef, and decided that she was going to be a potter. "It was a time in my life when..." she would begin her stories, the ends of her words in sharp staccato from her accent. She ended each sentence with an inhaled laugh, just shy of a snort and with those back of the throat gasps--the kind of laugh that makes you smile at its unique charm, the kind where once you've heard it, you can recognize that person anywhere.

She told us about how, one year, she left her portfolio of all of the ceramic pieces she had ever done (photos, of course; they were all sold by then) on a bus, where it was picked up by a stranger and never returned to her hands. Instead of mourning it, she accepted the loss as a sign, "That time of my life was now over. I began a new style, different from everything I had ever made."

While difficult to achieve, acceptance is beautiful. Learning to start over, learning to see the opportunity in a missed stitch, in a new city, in an open future where you can wake up and decide what you want to be that day or any day: this is what makes us artists.

Ramblings on Lifestyle, Operation: Simplify

I finally did it, naysayers! In attempts to simplify my life, I no longer utilize the ever-famed iPhone.

The switch was simple. In less than twenty minutes, I was out of the store, cheap little flip-phone in-hand, just in time to catch the next bus home.

Today, I found myself in the grocery store perusing a shelf of lotion and wondering which to get. Usually, I would pull out my phone and look up information about the brands and their moral backgrounds and their benefits. I gave a small laugh at my new found freedom. Yes, freedom. Why the hell does one need to research lotion in-store?

So many things are re-opening as non-necessities. Like e-mail: I do not need to answer an e-mail as soon as it gets to me. I do not need to check Facebook as soon as a little red circle appears on the homescreen app. These things can wait.



And yet, I am also learning that not every act of simplification feels resolved. As I manually punched in my phone contacts, I realized that I didn't need to include all 117 of them. I put in names and numbers and thought about when I last spoke to each and what we had said and what we might say in future conversations. I thought that, for some of these characters and digits, this would be the last I'd see of them, just memories of college and the variety of people I became friends with there--now ten or so states away.

I narrowed it down to 60 contacts--people that I certainly at least hope to keep in touch with, though I admit that most are either family or like family. Is this what it means to live simply? Less people? I always said that I would rather have a few quality friendships than a ton of acquaintances, yet don't we have fond memories with people we aren't entirely close to?

Then there are the close ones. Sorted by first names, I paused as I got to 'D' in my phonebook. Even though I could dial the number without having it officially named in this little box of technology, it felt like a big step--to scroll through contacts and not see his name; to know that even if I called, he would not answer. Yet just as with the acquaintances, I have to remember that an erased name on a silly list does not mean the memories are not there or did not happen.

I don't want to rely on little microchips to store my emotions, expressions, reactions. A name on a screen is not a face in front of you, is not even a photograph on your desk.



Even so, I saw opportunity in many of the digits that I typed. As I clicked each area code, I realized how far-spread my community is: Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Kansas, Texas, Arizona, California, Montana, and now, of course, Washington, to name a few. I am young and blessed and have many places to see and visit and go.



Every day on the bus, I look around me. People are staring down at their phones, perusing some virtual world. What can be gained from it? Of course, I read on the bus--does that put me at fault too? Still, I like to think that books are a better alternative. You cannot see the world if you aren't even looking out the window.



I finished reading Cloud Atlas today and am a little torn between centuries, past and future.

Observations: Kindness

A man sits on everything he owns. It is piled in a cluster directly between 1st and 2nd Avenue at Pike Street. He holds a stick with an attached string dangling a piece of cardboard that reads, "Fishing for Kindness."


I stood at Virginia Street this morning waiting for my transfer. I was reading and drinking tea, when I heard a sharp, "Get out the road, pidge!" A small, middle-aged woman, no taller than 5 feet and with thick glasses that magnified her eyes, stood to my left. She stared at the intersection where a pigeon sat in the first lane. We both watched cars approach the bird.

I looked down. I closed my eyes and waiting for the stomach-churning crunch, but when the traffic cleared, the pigeon still sat there, unfazed and unconcerned. The woman seemed angry with it; she stomped to the edge of the sidewalk and looked up the road: no cars. She continued to stomp to the bird and gave it a nudge with her foot. Cars were beginning to stream a block away. Looking up, she saw them and looked at the bird again.

In one movement, she swooped down and grabbed feathers, like picking up a kitten by the scruff of its neck. The bird's wings opened and shed small, cushiony feathers. In a parabola, the bird went up into the woman's grasp then smoothly down on the curb in a solid plop from her shuffling steps.

Snuggled back into its nesting position, the pigeon simply went back to occasionally glancing around. The woman looked at the bird, still. She leaned down and ran her fingers down its back a few times, smoothing over any stray feathers. A bus stopped at the curb. She gave the bird a few pats on the top of its head and, in several quick leaps, got on the bus.


A man sits on everything he owns. He is leaning against a building, holding his stick. He is not begging; he is not even asking. People gather around him, and they are talking with him and laughing and motioning with their hands. He is just fishing, and it is a good day.

Random Encounters, Part Three

Pike Place--an iconic scene when thinking of Seattle. Really? I've decided that Pike Place is the drug center of the city. I catch my bus home at Third & Pike every evening, along with countless others, and it is by far my least favorite stop in terms of peace, yet my favorite in terms of people watching.

Anyways, I call it the drug center because I've witnessed several strange scenarios on different occasions. Some are more somber. One evening, a very thin woman stood slanted on the corner. Her face was focused on something no one else could see. She had a needle in her hand.

Others are a lighter. Another evening on that same corner, a man stood with a cardboard sign, asking for marijuana. "I really love weed!!" he yelled as I walked by.

On Friday evening, I stood waiting at the stop, and a man with a beard and a brown paper bag stood to my far left under the cover of the building's overhang. I bounced a little in the cold and to the beat of the song I was listening to. I saw him notice me, and a minute later, he moved closer, over to my right. I continued to bounce and started humming "Painting by Chagall" by the Weepies. Soon, I heard someone talking, as if to me. I shook my head out of dreamworld and looked around. The man with the beard and the bag was speaking to me. He was leaning in close and pointing at me.

"Wm ou sm mrm fr s?" I heard. What?

"Would you like some nice mushrooms for Christmas?" he repeated, pointing to the bag.

"No, thank you," I couldn't help but let out a little laugh and went back to my song. I turned again, and the man was gone.

I'm not entirely sure about the legal status of magic mushrooms, but I found it quite interesting that out of the crowd of people at the stop, he chose me to ask. I wonder what people are thinking in such instances.



How bizarre, also, that in such a big city, I see the same people day after day. There is a woman who sits in a wheelchair at the bus stop and keeps a bag of goods underneath, which she peddles to a crowd familiar to her.

"I've got a nice jacket for you today," she said to a regular customer.

There is another man, who, when he asked me for money the second day in a row and with a different story, has since recognized me and stopped asking. The first day he wheeled up to me, it was, "Miss, I'm just...I'm in tears because I can't find my mom *points up the street* and I just got out of the hospital because I got hit by a bus, and I found a traveler's hostel up the street for $30; can you give me $30? One man only gave me a dollar." I didn't have any money and didn't quite trust his story anyways, so I said sorry and kept walking. The next day, it was, "Miss, I'm homeless and need money."

"You talked to me yesterday." I said. He nodded and committed my face to memory because when I passed on Friday, he nodded and said nothing.

He continued on to a man who was standing where the man with the mushrooms had once stood to my left. The man was fairly old and looked generally unhappy, his entire face sagging into one large frown. His shoulders stooped over, and he crossed his arms. The man begging had a young boy with him, holding an umbrella for him. As the man asked the angry fellow for money, the young boy slipped with the umbrella, and it came close to the angry man's face.

"What the fuck are you doing? Trying to stab my fucking eye out!"

"I'm sorry," the boy sheepishly replied and started to walk away.

"You don't talk to him like that, motherfucker," the begging man said to the angry one.

"What's that, motherfucker? Who the fuck do you think you are?" the angry man began towards the man in the wheelchair, who was starting to look upset in the way that he did the first night I saw him.

"He's my brother, now back the fuck off motherfucker!"

The angry man continued to get closer to the two, pointing and yelling, when a woman stepped between them.

"He's just a young boy. You don't talk to him like that," she told the angry man. "Now you keep going. Get on. Go," she turned to the young boy and the begging man.

It all happened very quickly, and the reason that it is any of my business is, for once, not because I was nosy, but because my bus was sitting at the curb, and the man in the wheelchair was in front of me, and the angry man was to my left, and a shop wall was to my right. There was no getting by the arguing men, and I sure wasn't going to be the one to step in-between them. The city is as safe as you are careful. I'd rather wait twenty minutes for the next bus than get mixed up something like that. Luckily, the woman, who seemed to know the angry man, resolved it quickly, and I took a few quick leaps up to my bus.

Laundry Day

I wrote myself an agenda of what needed done today: go to the bank, go to the AT&T store, go to the laundromat, dust my bedroom ('please/finally,' I had written), write a cover letter for a job. Guess how many of them got done. I went to the bank, but it was closed, and they got a new ATM that I couldn't figure out how to deposit in. I went to the AT&T store to ask about my lack of service at my apartment, and they just asked me to call customer service. As I was supposed to be driving to the laundromat, I changed my mind. I could see sky; I wasn't going to let that go to waste.

When I arrived at Discovery Park, the East Lot was full, so I went to the North Lot. I parked and pulled some warmer attire out of my laundry bag. I grabbed a map and started off, my muscles still sore from Thursday's football game, but it felt good to be moving and breathing the sharp air. 

I started at the Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center. I walked around the building to this patio viewpoint of the Sound. Large bodies of water comfort me, and the clear sky felt like summer.

After twenty minutes of walking along a paved road, I found myself back in the parking lot and quite confused. The map is ridiculous to understand, yet I laughed at my mistake. What a goof. Soon enough, I found my trail entrance. 

Signs indicated that there would be water, including three "reflection" ponds. 

Small bridges led the way over the bog. I was surprised to find stairs too.

I am in love with the way that light teases the plants that live deeper in the woods.

And moss; I love moss.

Reflections are actually quite baffling. When the signs said "reflection" ponds, I immediately thought of Annie Dillard. I imagined myself going there to explore and mentally reflecting on my surroundings. Instead, I was amazed to find the world reflecting back at me, an upside down array of trees so smooth that it could be the real thing; has gravity fooled me? The picnic table rests on its own Platonic form. 

First world problems: I want to be a pack-light hiker & a photographer; therefore, good photos of ducks get sacrificed when the fixed 50mm lens & 10-22mm are chosen over the 55-200mm.

The biggest leaf I have ever seen. I thought these trees made me feel big because the Redwoods made me feel so small, so normal sized trees aren't so intimidating. Then I ran into this leaf. And as the light reveals, it's with-leaf-child. That or it's a cannibal leaf and ate a fellow leaf for lunch. 

And just like that, the light got stronger, trying to hold on to day as the dark sank into the soggy grasses.  It was only 3:45.

And South Beach pulled me: I cannot resist the sound of waves. I sat on a driftwood log and read selections from Poems for a Small Planet: Contemporary American Nature Poetry out loud to passersby. I'll share two that stood out to me today.

This is a Blessing, This is a Curse

No sound from the stone,

which is to say

that I am deaf at last.

I have prayed for this and then

regretted praying.

No voice from the depths

to rise like fish and leap

for my ear.

This is a blessing for my soul

that would not presume.

This is a curse for my heart

that needs to hear.

-Chard DeNiord

Painting It In

     (Remembering Lesley Parry)

Wake up at six o'clock. We're out to sea.

Nothing beyond that fence and slatted gate

but a grey wave and plume-like shapes that could be

flaws in the canvas or unmixed pigment in paint.

Stones, blurred poppies, a wheelbarrow full of grass

affirm a foreground. The world must exist out there.

People must be getting up and getting washed,

putting the kettle on, picking up a newspaper.

Somewhere it must matter terribly not to be late,

not to miss the limousine to the airport,

not to be missed when the finance committee votes,

when the training course commences, not be left out.

But somewhere is hard to believe when it's not invented, 

when the world blindly refused to admit detail.

All that's required is pastoral: sheep among stunted

rowans; for background, eroded 'Moelfre' or 'bald hill.'

The thing's been done so many times. Imagine

brushing the lichen's pearly quartz over the rocks,

now the shocking pink foxgloves, painting them in,

old fashioned belles de joie, drunk on their stalks.

What if today decides never to take off its veil,

never to palliate art with a grand show

of perspectives up the valley? More likely all we'll

get is light's first lesson, an application of gesso,

a whiteout of air--sweet, soft, indestructible,

the cloud of unknowing reluctant to create the known.

Hills, stones, sheep, trees are, as yet, impossible.

And when things are unmade, being also feels less alone.

-Anne Stevenson

When my eyes focused as I looked up, I realized that it was getting a little too dark, such that if I tarried any longer, it would be uncomfortably lacking light as I attempted to follow the confusing paths back to my car. As I started walking, a light rain began. I decided to put away my camera and put on my raincoat, just in case it started to get heavy. I sat my bookbag on the ground and bent over, putting away my lens and camera, and as I did I heard a clunk! 

I didn't think much of it; my phone had been in my pocket and had fallen many times, and as advertised, my iPhone has put up with a lot (I once accidentally threw it across a parking lot because I lost my grip while I was swinging my arms; it survived with only a barely noticeable scratch). I was just very glad that my camera was safely packed away. As I went to pick up the phone, I realized that the entire front was shattered. 

Somehow, it still works. The cracks are getting whiter and wider as the pressure of my tapping fingers tests the glass's durability in its fragile state. A small piece of glass stuck in my thumb as I sent a text message to my sister. I actually find it hilarious. It's a sign; it's absolutely a sign--I've been talking for months about how terrible my reliance on my iPhone is. Apparently, it doesn't like me either. The ironic part is that today, I went to the AT&T store to figure out how to improve service at my apartment. The woman called me this evening to do a "troubleshooting." Whether it failed because it's just impossible to get service here or because my phone is now a glass mosiac, I'm not sure, but the call still would not connect when she attempted to call afterwards. She left me one partial message that didn't get past hello and one long, irritated message that said "as I said in my previous message...". Listen, I'm not ignoring your call; I just cannot connect. 

As one of my favorite Weepies tunes goes, "I want to live a simple life." Maybe I'm closer to that; I spent the day in the woods and the waters' edge reading poetry and the one piece of technology that I so despise took a tumble. Coincidence? I think not. 

Needless to say, my bag of laundry still sits in my car and that job application is merely a thought. Maybe tomorrow.

I will learn to love the rain. Part Two.

Picture it. Me--the person who scrunches out her shoulders, shrinking her head down like a turtle in its shell when the rain starts--walking in pouring rain at 9:15am on the way to work. I just got off the bus and am walking three or four blocks to my building. The rain is gathering in the sidewalk dips, and as it was when I was a child, the puddles are so tempting. When I see bodies of water, I just want to be in it, which I guess be a bit contradictory to my sentiments towards the rain.

I will learn to love the rain.

I'm a sucker for temptation. I look at my feet and decide to test out my rainboots. As I walk, I am always humming or whistling or scatting or singing. On this day, I decided to make up my own song, and for some reason, it came out in a British accents. With each step I reached my legs far enough to splash in small puddles. I walked carelessly and probably looked drunk. Each step splooshed and sent water upwards.

"Raiiin boots! Raiiiin boots! Splash-ing in pud-dles in my raiiin boots!!" I chimed in-time with my steps and an unbreakable smile on my face. I like watching the water's reaction to my heavy feet against its surface.




Of course, each day ends, and as I left that same day, I saw the much larger puddles that had gathered throughout the day. I reasoned: I no longer needed to look presentable. I took a running start and jumped up, propelling my body forward like a kangaroo.

SKLOOUSH!!

The water seemed to move in slow motion. It felt heavy in the air and reached my legs in thick splatters. I was soaked to my knees while other streams sporadically sprayed up my thighs. I fell forward in landing and laughing and kept walking.

As I arrived at a street-crossing, the light was red. I searched my iPod to fit my mood and put on "No Rain" by Blind Melon. I loudly started singing along and swaying. Then I caught motion on the sidewalk in my peripheral. I looked over and to my surprise, my co-worker, Marc, was standing next to me. "OH HEY!" I said too loudly as I pulled a speaker bud out of my ear. We then carried out a normal conversation, and I didn't even act sheepish about my outburst of song (Julia Child--NEVER APOLOGIZE, blog post #2?). This was our first actual conversation since I started work, so we were really only covering the basics: where are you from, where are you now, etc.

We walked briskly, and soon, the rain started again. We both ignored it and kept talking and kept walking. Oh yeah, I'm a Seattleite.




Tonight, I called my dad on the two-mile walk to my bus home. It's nice to have some company during the walk, and I had missed a call from him earlier in the week.

"I like to walk home to the Pike St. bus stop on nice evenings," I told him. "It's not even raining! Can you believe it?"

I spoke too soon. As I was passing Safeco Field, the rain started. I thought it would just be light and ignorable like it was when Marc & I walked right through it. Soon, waves of rain swayed in the wind. Oh boy.

I dug through my bookbag for my umbrella. The wind blew it open. OH BOY.

I was still on the phone with Dad, "I will learn to LOVE the rain!" I repeated. This mantra never gets old. He laughed. "You know you want to come join me in the rain," I said, laughing too.

Not as confident in rain AND wind, I shrunk my body against itself, huddled under my practically useless umbrella. I slipped my bookbag around to my front, though it was already soaked. The wind pushed the rain against me, urging me forward and soaking my entire backside.

I thought back to my trek across the Ballard bridge. I'm pretty sure I was ready to cry then, but here I was now LAUGHING.




Of course, I'm not there yet. I still have a long ways to go. I've been fortunate enough to only have puddles to maneuver on my runs thus far, and my waterproof sneakers seem to be handling that alright, but I'm still nervous for running in actual rain. I know it will be soon. Mostly, I just never know what to do with my eyes--they want to shut against the sharp, cold pellets, but I need to see! Haven't figured that one out yet.

Regardless, I have lived in Seattle for approximately fourteen weeks, and I'm not a total hermit. That's good, right?

I will learn to love the rain.

Like my want for health, I have to constantly be on myself about it. To be fit, you can't just try to lose weight and then quit when it happens. You have to keep up the hard work--constantly eat well and move much. Now, to make this rainy season part of my lifestyle, I have to constantly face the rain and appreciate the wet.

I will learn to love the rain.

Random Encounters. Part Two.

You may be wondering why this is Part Two, but Part One is forthcoming. Be patient.

I rushed to my morning bus stop, as always, though I'm early. I dashed under the small pavilion that housed the waiting bench. It was raining. A man, maybe in his sixties, sat on the bench. He picked up his newspaper from beside him, but I always choose to stand.

I cuddled up to my hot tea and let out the day's first sigh. Ahhh. Checkpoint number one.

"Today November Nin-teen, yes?" the man turned to me. He had a thick Eastern European accent. German?

Caught off-guard, I looked at the calendar page written on the inside of my upper eyelids, "I think so." I nodded, feeling more certain, "Yes, it is."

He let it sink in, lightly bobbing his head and shoulders together with his brow straight across in thought. He looked up again.

"Rain really going down."

"Yeah." I'm not really a conversationalist in the mornings, especially after my other encounter, which I have yet to share.

"Wow," he smiled, remembering past rain. Then, slowly, "Always this time of year... ev-er-ee-body... pick out Christmas trees! Even in rain, pick out Christmas trees! Rain like this. Even rain like this."

He did not look at me as he spoke. He stared into the rain, looking through it to another street in his memory. The bus breaks broke his reverie as it reached the stop sign on the corner and began towards us.

"Ah, the bus... is here, " like a summoning charm. It stopped before us, and he motioned for me get on ahead of him.

It is well.

Yesterday morning, I slept in. When I finally rolled out of bed, I went through my usual routine, which ended with me actually getting dressed. As I stripped off my night clothes, I looked at the selection on my floor. Yup, same jeans as I've worn the past week...mhmm, wore this shirt yesterday...yup, this jacket smells clean enough. Look at that! I cleaned my room and got dressed at the same time! Now that's economical!

I told myself that I wanted to enjoy my last day off before official employment. (I also told myself that I wanted to wear as few clothes as possible so that I would only have to go to the laundromat once-a-month.) I stepped outside and was shocked--the sun was out! And I don't mean "out" like it was when I excitedly told Katlin over the phone, "I can see light behind the clouds!"; I mean it was fully exposed, as were my eyes, which I fear will shrink into black spots accustomed to dark spaces like those of a mole. I got to wear sunglasses on my walk to the store!

My excitement for such beautiful weather--in the 60s!--in November lasted all day. Certain that Mt. Rainier would be out, I biked down to Kerry Park and sat on a bench reading Annie Dillard until the sun went behind a cloud for the evening, an instant chill which sent me biking home. And no, Mt. Rainier was hidden behind clouds that mirrored its snow-capped shadow. Somehow, even when the whole sky is clear, there is so often a full cloak surrounding the mountain; it only shows its face occasionally, making each appearance a majestic display.

And it was.

I woke up this morning as someone way too excited to be going to a thing called work. I've just been waiting and growing weary, and now it was here! A job! I had my clothes laid out, my lunch packed; I was ready. I tried to go to bed early last night, but of course failed; I even woke up at an ungodly hour and couldn't sleep. It was like anxiety over the first day of school, back when I was excited to go to school. (I wish the excitement would stay.)

Regardless, I was determined to have a good day. As I left the house, tea in-hand, I smiled. I smiled as I walked to the bus. I went through the checklist in my head and realized, holy shit--I don't even have a pencil. Or paper. Or a pen. What kind of writer goes into a writing job without any writing utensils?! I looked at my watch; the bus would arrive in three minutes, and I still had to get to the stop--no time to go back. I walked past the church, where a man was mopping just inside the door, and I honestly contemplated asking if I could borrow a pencil from a pew. (Don't worry, I didn't; I reasoned that it would be O.K.--chill.)

So I kept smiling. As the bus slid down Queen Anne Ave North like a snake clinging to the ground yet propelling on, I looked over my left shoulder. The sky was orange sherbet over the Cascades. The Space Needle stood just to the left of, you guessed it, shimmering Mt. Rainier. I gasped at the purple against orange palette. Where have I been all my life that I have never seen such colors? That my life has been coated in the same backdrop of green and brown forest?

The cold air caught my exhale in a steam in front of my face as I waited for my transfer. I pretended like the air was fresh from Rainier, even though it stunk in the exhaust of the passing motorists. Cities are strange places.

But I continued to smile, even through the sharp pang of diesel thickening in my lung. When my bus arrived, I was shocked to find it nearly full. I scurried to the first open seat I saw and attempted to sit down. However, I dropped my tea in the process, which promptly landed, stuck, upside down over my book bag. It sent a steady stream of hot tea over everything I had brought with me. I wiped my wet hands on my dress pants (ladylike, as always) and assessed the damage. I looked around--no one had seen: that or they didn't care; my bag had absorbed the liquid before it could reach the floor, so at least I had no mess to clean up. I shrugged it off and looked on the bright side--my book bag would smell good!

Alright, alright. Fast-forward a few bus stops, and I arrived at work. I talked to another first-day temp in the lobby and noticed that she didn't constantly smile when she spoke. I tried to do the same. I let my cheeks relax and tried to talk with some expression other than geeked out. I failed and ended up with a puppet grin as she continued to appear uninterested in my Pennsylvania talk--she was from L.A. and had bigger stories to tell about working as a fashion stylist for high-end commercials.

We waited for the woman from HR to direct us to 'our stations'. When she finally did, she handed us our fancy little electronic door key card swipers and pointed at the desk and said, "Here you go! Good luck!" I scanned the desk: a mug! (there must be coffee somewhere...), Post-It notes, A TIN OF PENS AND PENCILS!, scissors (why would I need scissors?), a stapler, staples, paperclips, a laptop, a separate keyboard and mouse, another monitor, and a packet. I started by tacking my name to the (lime!) green board behind my desk then sat down and began reading the packet. I started the instructions, which of course, failed. My computer wasn't working right; error, yada yada yada. At first, I thought they were crazy to just drop us off the cliff like that (there was another girl starting as copywriter, too).

Finally, another copywriter filled in as our mentor. She spent all morning showing us the ropes and how to run the programs and register for everything. I caught on quickly; I was eager to learn. In the afternoon, we were given some assignments--write titles and bullets for several events; follow the formatting in the packet. Okie doke. I began typing. My partner newbie did the same. Every so often, she would turn to me and say, "Do you remember how to do ....?" Sure; I'd show her and go back to my computer. It felt good to have answers; it felt good to be needed. I finished my first set of assignments and messaged my copy lead (we all IM each other, even though we're in the same room; odd but convenient, I guess). She sent me more work, which I did and sent it back to the writers to fill in with copy.

"You work fast," my copy lead told me as she let me go early for the day. My partner sat still typing at her desk.

"I'm just really excited, and I think I'm getting the formatting better; my last assignment seems so different from my first!"

"I'll give you feedback tomorrow so that you know what can be improved." And I'm really excited; I'm a format geek. I love lists. I love alphabetizing. I love matching the letters and numbers of the SKUs to each other to upload to the website!

I felt bad leaving my new friend still working. Was I lazy to leave early? Had I done enough? I did have a lot of down time... She was very quiet and seemed to move in a methodical rhythm, her pace tagging along. I kept thinking that I was going to be her--when I pictured myself going in to work, I expected to be nervous and afraid to ask my supervisor questions. I expected to question every word I wrote down, thinking I must be wrong. I'm still wondering how I wasn't, but I certainly don't see it as a bad thing either; I'm sure that her work was much more careful than mine. Different processes, I guess? Regardless, I said good night and see you tomorrow and rinsed out my mug for tomorrow's tea. (That's right; there's tea and hot chocolate and coffee and a pool table and chess and beer and cookies. It's crazy.)

As I walked to the bus stop in the center of downtown, maybe a mile away, I enjoyed the lights (how did it get to be dark already?) and the whir of all of the people leaving their jobs for the evening. Two men were walking in the same direction as me. I caught the tail end of a conversation.

"You were right; it's not this way."

"What's that?"

"You were right."

"What?"

"YOU WERE RIGHT." How we so love to hear it; I laughed, and they guy noticed. "You didn't hear that," he joked.

"I've been there," I said, and from there, we kept talking as we walked, but the conversation was so odd; we spoke as if we were good friends and new each other well; he described his day to me and I to him and soon enough, he looked at a building and realized he and his friend had passed the address they were searching for and headed off in the other direction without even telling his name! People are so funny! Though I didn't tell him my name either.

And I found that I was still smiling. I came home to find TWO packages at my door; one, a pair of discount rain boots that I've been so looking forward to (I will learn to love the rain.) and the other a box of books sent from my mom in PA, even though they weren't expected to get here until Saturday! I took off my jacket and ripped open both boxes. I put on my rainboots and stood in my room taking each book out of the box, saying, "Yes! Yes! YES!" They were all the right ones (though there is no such things a wrong book). I've been telling my parents that I needed my books because even some that I've already read simply comfort me from the shelves. It just feel so good to have so many arrays of words within reach to reference to my favorite lines and read my marginal notes that I don't remember writing.

I arranged the books carefully on my shelves. Poetry down here, uh huh. Nice! Now, nature to the left, then religion, then Dillard, Hemingway, Didion, Rilke, and all the rest of the singles who don't get special placement by author because they're loners. They don't make the top few whom I can't get enough of, least not yet anyways--I haven't read all of the singles yet. Ahhh, books. I just want to open them and absorb them and read them all at once. It's a sickness; it really is. The only cure is a cup of tea in one hand and book #1 in the other, a quiet space, and a chunk of a few hours.

Suffice to say I read for the evening, but I did replace the tea with a newly invented vegan pumpkin banana smoothie that tasted like skinny pumpkin pie and left me with this huge spurt of energy right before bed, where I should have been sleeping an hour ago (two?). What the hell! Tomorrow's Friday!

So all in all, it was a good day. The best. I feel great, and I hope that it lasts. I pray that it lasts. I feel like this is what I've been waiting for: to feel fulfilled.

It is well with my soul.

P.S. It turns out I did need the scissors at work. While I was waiting and waiting for a new assignment to be sent to me, I decided to make the most of a scrap of a Post-It from the lovely arrangement of notes and hints I had posted along my monitor (wow, what a nerd). I folded a triangle and cut off the excess to make a square, which then magically turned into a little birdy that sits on my desk. Quite a productive day!

My Two Cents

Well, well, well...
Today is the day that has been talked about, emphasized, commercialized, dramatized, and simply overdone for the past eleven months. We're in a funny place this election, too--we are faced with the possibility of re-election of our most recent president: a very controversial issue.

As my ballot sat on my desk for several weeks, I kept contemplating, continually undecided, which circle I would finally fill-in. Being my first presidential election in which I am eligible to vote, I feel excited, empowered, and frightened. What if I fill in the wrong bubble? What if I change my mind? All of this hype around elections is so much added pressure; it muffles who the candidates really are and what they are actually committing to--it's not a popularity or wealth contest, though it much appears to be one. 

I thought back on the list of past presidents our country has had--of course, the "big" ones stand out in my mind: George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, JFK--the ones that history classes seem to focus on. Then the presidents who have been in office since I've been alive crossed my mind and how our country has changed each decade, and now each century, since its creation. The roots have to be important: the foundation of our country. Then I realized how little I remember from high school history, if I ever even learned some of those things at all: what political parties were those "great", remembered presidents representing? In what standing were they when they ran for office?

I started to wonder how the people felt during the elections of these big names. Thinking back to each presidential election that I can remember, the consensus I have gained seems to reflect that neither candidate has ever been "good enough" for the role, that there is no "good" or "right" or "obvious" option for who should next lead our nation. Was this the majority during those times past as well? Or are we so uninformed in recent years that we don't even know what we want to stand for when we vote or that we don't know what the candidates stand for? It all seems jumbled into a lottery of situation-dependent questions that are "too big" to give our time to or at least try to answer. 

But four years is short enough--if the leader makes a mistake, he only has to deal with it when facing re-election, hoping for a chance to clean it up; if the leader works to clean up past messes, he will inevitably let other areas slip away, creating new messes for the next-in-line. No matter what, the president seems to be a rather unfavorable character during the entire term, even though we (the people!) are the ones who put him there!

I've noticed there's some magic behind it all: once the man is out of office, people are much more forgiving and find him more favorable--especially since now, they have a new person to gripe about. Can't anyone get it right?

It's so easy to blame another for our mistakes--that's one of the reasons that our system is so perfect for our lifestyles. We love to blame other people; we hate to be the ones responsible for our problems. We think that putting someone else into a role of high authority will divert the problem from our responsibility. Remember, however, that person is representing us! His mistakes are our mistakes. His successes are our successes. 

Know what you stand for. Know what the candidates stand for. Vote informed.



And here is my disclaimer: I don't particularly like to discuss politics; I like to read and to learn. I'm probably not the best person to be giving a rant like the above, but someone has to say it:
Election day is a responsibility and a freedom.

We, the people: can we please treat it as such just for that one day, at least? I felt sick seeing a television commercial for an Election Day Sale! at a chain store. Let's not be sold as the apathetic commercialists so much of the world already thinks we are, yeah?

Accessibility.

The afternoon is oddly warm. The sun peaks in and out of the shifting clouds, and even downtown warms in the rays. I'm on the bus going back to my apartment after making a generally brief trip downtown. The day is still early, but I'm tired. My eyes drift into a half-daze, staring into a dream.

I'm walking up to the van. I go around to the driver's side and open the door. I lift the key out of the cup-holder and start the ignition, adjust the radio. Putting up the armrest, I climb back, ducking to avoid the ceiling. I find the little, grey box and push the toggle down. The van starts buzzing as the side doors open and the lift flattens and lowers. Derek drives onto the platform. When he stops, I hear his chair beep as he switches modes to slightly recline.

"Okay." He says, but I've already switched the button up, and he is on his way. As the platform levels out with the floor of the van, I move to the back seat, still reaching the toggle to finish closing the doors. Derek pulls in and turns to face the front; he moves forward and back until he is parallel to the window and within good reach of the safety buckles.

His chair beeps again as he lifts his footrest. I go to the front of his chair and criss-cross the buckles. Left to right; right to left. He drives the chair backwards to secure them. I go to the back of his chair and criss-cross the buckles again. This time, I tighten each one until they are taut. I maneuver my way back to the driver's seat and put the armrest back down. I buckle my seat belt and put the van into gear.



The bus beeps in a steady rate as the lift lowers to let out the elderly gentleman with a walker who got on a few stops ago. The whirring echoes my flashback, and my head jerks up to look around: did I miss my stop? I didn't. I actually have a ways to go. I let out a big breath and blink too much as my mind wanders back to the scene in my head. It could've been last week. It could've been this summer. But it wasn't.

Sometimes I need a flip-book reminder to flash through my head to let me know how I got here and just where 'here' is: quick images of the major changes of the past year flirt with my sense of time and direction.

As the lift stows away and the beeping stops, all I can think is that he would love it here; he would be able to do whatever he wanted; we could be doing these things together.

We could ride the bus.

delicates.

A week ago, I sat in the laundromat, trying to focus on Annie Dillard, but was distracted: by the hum of the machines, by the ranting of the owner in a language that I do not know, and by the dull, happy buzzing in my mind resulting from talking to a good friend for the first time in a while.

As I watched my clothes spin, the machine shook violently, and I thought of how careful I had been in getting my clothes into the washer. I made sure that my laundry bag didn't touch the ground on the way to the shop, even though the bag was heavy and the clothes already dirty. I made sure that each shirt and sock was right-side-out and gently tossed, fairly flat, into the front-loading bowl. Here they were now: being tossed and shaken and vibrated into some sort of cleanliness.

I couldn't help but wonder why I had taken so much time to make sure that everything seemed perfect. I wanted every detail to be right; it made me feel together: whole. With my clothes washed right-side-out, I won't have to worry about them stretching were I to wait to turn them later. Why does it matter? Why treat things so gently? The funny part, to me, was that even though we can take care of our "stuff" as good as possible, when we send it to the outside world, it's thrown about like a snowball--picking up dirt and other things that stick before being tossed to blend with the whole: smashed into an unrecognizable collage of what used to be individual.

I thought about other items that we do this with: luggage, mail. These items that we pack so carefully, ensuring every detail is correct, double-checking that we didn't forget anything.

Mail--Stamp? check. Contents? check. Return address? check.
Luggage--Shampoo? check. Toothbrush? check. Clean underwear? check.

It goes on in this pattern, even though these things are just going to find their way into a pile somewhere after being thrown around and smashed about. I began to wonder if the delicate care even mattered; what if I just threw my clothes into a ball and tossed them in the washer. Wouldn't they still come out clean?

I took a step back and thought about it again. Sure, the clothes would be clean, but not as good as when  well cared-for. Then I realized that, maybe it wasn't the things that I was focusing on--I mean, sure, my disgust in how particular I am about worldly items spurred these thoughts, but I soon recognized myself in the washer rotations.

Here I am: out in the world on my own. Sure, it's been rough with graduate school not quite working out how I thought and having difficulty finding a job, but I'm still in one piece. Why? Because I was well-prepared. Because my parents took the time and the energy to make sure that I was right-side-out--a good education, a diploma under my belt, and a solid family upbringing--before tossing me into the machinations of a new city and a great, big world.

And just as the washer sent my clothes out beaten but clean, I hope that the world makes kind enough to do the same for all of us--children nurtured and sent into the dirty hands of the world, but with enough strength and capability to come out better than before, just as the mail and the luggage comes through the other side and into the right hands.

As a final note, I think it will; sometimes, the washer needs to run just a little longer; sometimes, there are some delays in the post; sometimes, the luggage gets a little lost on the conveyor belt, but eventually, it arrives. I've learned that well the past few weeks, and luckily, this wash cycle is up for a while: I got a job!