to know it for the first time.

This isn't a Christmas blog. Not really. It's a response to home and family. Growing older, my friends - and I - wrestle with what home has come to mean. For some Christmas is the same happy time it ever was, and for others (I think most) it's a glaring reminder of everything we didn't turn out to be. The one time a year we all have to sit down and look at one another, regardless of whether we like what we see.

Family is one kind of home. The inescapable kind. :) But true home is where we belong. It can be family or any place we're drawn by something bigger than us. I've come to understand we rarely choose where we belong. We can want it to be one place or another, but home is something we have to find and when we get there, we know. Home is the place you walk away from over and over and the path you take leads you always back, and each return brings a deeper love for the place than you knew before. Home is the love that follows you, that brings you back no matter what you had in mind.

What family and home have in common, I think, is that they're never what we expected them to be. They're fraught with disappointment, frustration, and especially, re-evaluation of what we believed was important. Family and home aren't easy, let alone the idyllic images we look to at Christmastime. But with their shortcomings, their stubborness, the secrets we pretend not to know, they're beautiful. Beautiful like we couldn't have the same life without them. And the best of their beauty, or the worst, is that we will always love them. Whether we like it or not.

all i want for christmas is PEAS

Shaniqua has developed a disgusting obsession with people food. You can't eat a piece of toast without her shamelessly climbing in your lap, daintily sniffing and (if you don't stop her) taking a lick. But what was once an obnoxious habit is now fodder for my pathetic sense of amusement: I'm feeding her peas. Peas by the spoonful. Ahahaha. SHE thinks she's getting away with something glorious. I'm cackling as the she gobbles the most shrivelled, overcooked vegetables I can pick out.

In other news: nothing. That's all that's happened this week. I thought with unlimited free time I'd eventually get productive, but as it turns out, wasting time never gets boring. Ever! I couldn't tell you what I've done since classes ended, but it probably involves a lot of sleeping.

So. In the two days left before I leave town, I will vacuum, dust, sweep, clean the bathroom, put away laundry, fix my bike, score neuropsych tests, enter data, come up with a manuscript topic, come up with a coding scheme for paragraphs, finish my lit review, start my fellowship application, and cut my toenails. Yep. Right after I watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

she's going the distance! she's going for speed!

Except not really achieving speed of any kind. "Going for" is the phrase of interest. Still, as a girl who faked asthma attacks to get out of middle school gym class, this is progress.

Yesterday I ran my first 5K, the Jingle Bell Run for arthritis. And - did not come in dead last! I even had a pretty decent time for a first-timer, which I'm not going to mention here because if it's not decent and everyone was being nice, I choose blissful ignorance.

Next to me are Stacey, Lindsey, and Lisa, fellow first-years whose credits extend well beyond being better runners than me.



It was fun... even in 30-DEGREE WEATHER. Once again, Florida, wtf? Just when I think you couldn't be any more backwards, you prove me wrong with arctic temperatures on the one day I could really use the nice weather.

some thoughtful bitching (is a blog ever anything else?).

Never in my life can I remember so many ups and downs (mostly downs) as there have been the past several months. I'm trying to be happy where I am. Usually I'm pretty good at that. But happy seems to have turned into that flaky friend who swears up and down she'll be at your party and never shows. It's impossible to predict whether today I'll be energized and grateful to be alive (which happens often enough) or want to climb back into bed and sleep away as much of my life as I can. Mostly, it's just not like me to be so frequently down for so long. As I look up "Adjustment Disorder" in my DSM. We psychologists find the most pathetic ways to console ourselves.

I realize it's pretty normal. Many of us first-years are struggling to be content in our new home. One fifth-year told me she cried for the first two years (which um, incidentally, not happening with me. Life is both too short and too long to stay sad for years). I also realize, newly, that it's not about missing places or people. Yeah, I loved Chicago. But I also loved Leeds and I'll never go back to it. I love my family and friends, but I've made it through a fair chunk of my life without them being rightnexttome and if I have to (and I do), I can make it through this chunk without them too.

What I'm trying to say is you love lots of people and places and some of them stay part of your life but few stay physically in your life the whole time. And that's as it should be. What we do need is love where we are, in some form or another. Some loves happen entirely in solitude. Whatever it is, I don't have it yet. But what do you expect? Worthwhile things take time. (Although they don't always! Can't I have some NOW?)


ALSO:

This may seem like a ridiculous disclaimer, but I realize my complaint occurs entirely in luxury. So I'm lonely. Sad for me. But much of the world is suffering a whole lot more than emotional discomfort. There are people who don't have loving family or friends to bitch to about living in a town full of chain stores and strip malls. There are people who can't speak freely at all, let alone post whiny blogs about how much Florida sucks (but you do, Florida, you suck so much). There are people, lots of people, who are dying. For stupid reasons. Who don't get clean water and basic medical treatment which is so easily available. Who will never live long enough to experience the possibilities which most of us take for granted.

So, you know, boo hoo for me in adjusting to my brilliant opportunity for an advanced degree at a top tier institution where I'll be guaranteed a comfortable living, invigorating career, and the freedom to bitch about being lonely sometimes.

could it be?

I've noticed a remarkable thing lately: the days (which for months have dragged) are flying by. And they're full. I get home on Friday and it doesn't occur to me anymore to bawl my eyes out, the weekend of solitude stretching before me. The solitude is scented with incense, a new herb garden, lots and lots of friendly cat breath. The weekends have friends in them. Not people. Not forced conversation in a too-noisy bar, but friends, who are more familiar all the time. Friends for watching movies at home with, playing board games with, for going to potentially lame but possibly cool things with because even if it was lame we'd have fun.

I said at the start how the women and men in my program are uncommonly delightful. Sharp, thoughtful, funny, definite people with substance to tap into and learn from. I'm glad to say it again and mean it more the second time. I feel pushed to be better in different ways from being around them. It gets more interesting now, as we've covered the awkward initial ground. We're getting to know each other. Which I have a feeling is going to be fulfilling. With genuinely cool people (and that they are), you're rarely disappointed.

Beyond the people though. The sense of home is growing. The cold weather helps. :) And the time. My apartment doesn't feel like a weird place anymore, it feels like mine. My paintings, my scarves, my sprawling plants. My curtains and windows and walls. My bed, with sheets that no longer have the creases from being fresh out of their packaging. I still hate Gainesville. But I don't hate living there. I don't feel like I've moved to another planet. Anymore.

The questions which have tortured me the past half year are also fading. The "imposter syndrome" lives on, but it's not so crushing at the moment. :) The weight of - what? fear? pressure? - is there but lighter; it pushes me forward. Instead of sending me into fits of insomniac cold sweats. I might not be a rock star researcher or anything, but I'll do a good job. I can do this. And I belong here. I can't describe what it feels like to finally own that. I belong here.

i'd never hurt a salmon's feelings.

The black mold spores have finally gotten to my brain. It's been a night for Funky-Ass Dreams.

FAD the first: I am hanging out with a roomful of emo highschoolers listening to the newest Modest Mouse. I make some comment about how Good News for People Who Like Bad News was like soooo selling out to the mainstream and between that single and this newest one, which is better? To which they all emphatically agree this one is much better. The catch? There is no new Modest Mouse record.

FAD the second: I am a waitress in a fancy restaurant. Salman Rushdie comes in and asks for the salmon. I giggle and am about to make a wisecrack but suddenly feel deeply sorry for any man whose name sounds like a fish.

my brain says it's snowing.

I've found the temporary cure to Florida's perpetual summer: watching Christmas movies! Two hours of snowfall, white landscapes and thickly-wrapped scarves has transported me far from the land of palm trees.

How can people live without this? How can anyone stand to be where mittens are rendered useless? I can't imagine never breathing the bright air cold enough to condense your breath, to chill your skin but not quite your bones. Or walking in woods under bare trees, gray clouds, falling snow, with dead leaves underfoot and chimney smoke in the air. Even waiting on a crowded el platform after work in a blizzard of white has its own small magic when you look out the darkened train windows at snow piling on the stopped-up cars.

Here we are robbed of the excuse to cuddle up to someone for warmth. Tragic. :)

Which has led me to decide that I don't want to live without the beautiful cold. There's the real possibility of being permanently removed from places that snow (and all that comes with them), depending on my dedication to my career. Lately I've been in ongoing conversation about the life I envision after finishing here. There is a clear tradeoff in which you can work infinitely hard, give up nights, weekends, family, even choosing where you live, and be very successful. Conversely, the more you want out of your life, the more limitations on your career.

Don't get me wrong; I'd go bonkers if I wasn't being productive. But as I say often, I only get one life. I'm willing to sacrifice being where I want and have a limited personal life - for a few years, but not for my whole life. Because I don't get another one after this. Who would spend every minute of their one wild, precious life toiling after scientific knowledge? Well, someone would. But not me. I've got a few other things I want to do.


(I know it's been all introspective blogs lately and no random rants or cute pictures. Sorry. I thought at first I was getting too serious but let's be honest, this is a super-formative point of life. Probably the most ever. So I'm going with it and jabbering away as I see fit. I won't always be this trepidaciously obsessed with my current and future situations... or at least, I'm really hoping it's a phase-specific thing. Whoever you readers are, you seem to be showing up anyway - I saw today there's been almost 1000 reads! Who's reading this stuff? I don't have that many friends.)

it's halloween and i'm scared silly.

No vampires or monsters in this locality: just the terrifying spectre of the Meta-Goals Statement (eeeeeeeeeee). I mass-e-mailed a while ago with news about my new aging traineeship. Well, the first step once you're in is to assemble a mentoring committee - check - and write out your career goals. Um, not check. Frozen state of trepidation. Still, I had to discuss it with my mentor this morning, and never anticipated sitting there heart racing, clicking and unclicking my pen for over an hour.

I can handle concrete goals, like number of publications and conferences per year. But articulating what my life will look like in 2016? Can we not think about that? I can't say whether I'll have a family then or even a boyfriend, much less discuss maternity leave with someone whose role in my life is unmistakably a little dad-like. Not that I don't appreciate the guidance - I really do. It's just staggering to think about this stuff. Nattering away to my friends is one thing. Sharing my ideas with someone who'll help me fulfill them is another. Because for the first time in my life, I'm aware that whatever I want to do, I can do it. I have everything I need. That's unbelievably cool, and pretty daunting. I'm conscious this is a serious blessing. So I'd better do right by it, and choose well.

I've felt a growing pull toward mental health and cognition disparities among older adults. I think this is the perfect area for me to do meaningful clinical practice, research, and - this is what's nagging me - public service. As much as science turns me on, service and caregiving is my thing. It was hard to come out with that to my tenure-track, research-minded mentor, but he seemed to understand. So much so, he pointed out that I'd probably benefit from a second Master's in Public Health. Which is conveniently offered in conjunction with my PhD.

And here's where I yell: Wait! How far is this going to go? I like working, I want to do something meaningful, but I also like sleeping til noon, going to the beach, noodling around on the internet reading crass and pointless stories. I like playing with animals, eating cookies, making out. I'm content watching moss grow, or at least watching Shaniqua stalk non-existent animals out the back window. And that is a good life too. So where do I decide enough is enough?

WHO, you are kinda cool.

After 2 mind-numbing hours of handwritten speculation on the relevance of developmental norms to child psychopathological assessment (I don't even like kids, much less want to analyze their bizarre little brains), never in a million years would I have guessed that a talk on healthcare classification would actually excite me. Either I'm really deprived for excitement or just really weird: the eroticized Alice in Wonderland this weekend, replete with naked knife-wielding women and a giant dude in drag as The Queen, did nothing for me, but the minutia of coding for dysphagia was TOTALLY AWESOME.

Tired rambling aside, this was actually pretty cool. So the World Health Organization wanted to address the issue of individual differences in healthcare: a one-word diagnosis in a chart doesn't provide much insight to what life is like for a person. WHO created this common numerical language to code for a whole host of issues in a person's life. With a combination of numbers, doctors can indicate not only a medical or mental condition but how it impacts details of the person's everyday functioning, and how their environment helps or hinders them. There's a number for every little part of the body, every little thing people do. EVERYTHING. I don't know who takes the time to think of all this stuff, but I think it's cool they do. There's actually a code for "this guy's illness will make him drool, which will make it difficult to take communion without weirding people out" (slight paraphrase on Shannon's part).

It's a simple, universal shorthand for healthcare providers to communicate medical problems, but also what it means for what the patient does in his or her everyday life, and what in his or her life will make the situation easier or harder. This enables us to consider - quantitatively - all the ways a person is affected by their one-word diagnosis. To anticipate how their life will change and what should be done to help them deal. So with a handful of numbers arranged a certain way, you can communicate all the important things related to a person's diagnosed condition. A way to offer much more complete help than just a label. COOL.

another rts victimization (no whitehead-popping involved this time).

Florida, we just don't like each other do we? You just CAN'T be nice to me. You wait until I leave town to flood my apartment, you send me to Orlando and send my luggage to outer space, and today, you steal my cell phone. Actually, you steal my purse, which happens to not have my wallet in it but does have my glasses and Burt's Bees chapstick. Florida, I liked that chapstick. And I really liked my phone. I had just taken a picture of the biggest onion I'd ever seen, and now that memory is lost forever. Why would you do that to me?

Thankfully I have comrades in the Alliance Against Cruel Florida. Rae is awesome, not only for consoling me with delicious burrito-food but for driving all over this ass-backward town looking for a Cingular store when she could be doing delightful stats homework instead. My other ally against the agonies of Florida: beer. About a year's supply-worth, by my estimate. I returned my spare guitar today, but since they only offer store credit I conceded to accept the biggest prepaid tab in my young history. It's really quite providential if you think about it. See? When God closes a door (phone) he opens a window (beer). I'm sure you could find that in Isaiah or something.

nobody, not even the rain.

I should be sleeping: I have a full day of memory screenings tomorrow at a retirement home and the older folks deserve a cheery volunteer. But, as is often the case, I'm so at peace with my tea and honey (tonight with the Trapeze Swinger continuously looped, yep I'm a nerd but it makes me happy), I don't want to miss it by sleeping. And I've been thinking of an old poetry collection and want to set some of it down to remember. Tonight it's e.e. cummings, who's unparalleled for more than his adroit use of syntax. (Note: I prefer his darker pieces, but I'll share something more lovely here.)

I went home last weekend, a spontaneous decision spurred by Mom and Dad's willingness to spot me a ticket. Now I've developed a pretty sturdy resolve to make do with where I am, but you should have seen the glee set off by going home. I was ignoring Gainesville before I even left. By the time the plane descended toward the city I was wildly excited, heart thumping, face plastered to the window. It was expensive, it was a lot of travel, and it was heartbreaking to leave, but it was worth it to be that happy for those few days.

My parents drove 4 hours round-trip to pick me up, and again to drop me off. And while I was home, I wasn't really social. I did the usual things. Slept in, stayed too long over coffee and breakfast, played with the dog. Picked apples with Mom, helped make apple crisp while we watched a documentary I picked out with Dad. We ate dinner at the table together: wine, chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans. It was weird to be back. And it was so nice. To be not a kid again, but nothing more complicated than a daughter. To be covered by the company of two people I've loved all my life. What makes us whole isn't the valiant proclamation. In real love, proclamations rarely say anything we don't already know. It's the layering of love, insignificant moment upon insignificant moment.

This is what I have in mind posting this poem. It's also the poem that subserves my little collection of hand pictures. I know it's a "love-poem". But I think it also speaks about the love you have with anyone you know so well that all it takes is a look or gesture of theirs, something so familiar and practiced but it carries the weight of the hundred times you've seen it before. The meaning small things take on over so many repetitions. How the people we love open and close us with the smallest of hands.


somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

florida, you SUCK.

THIS IS NOT WHAT I WANT TO WAKE UP TO IN THE MORNING! F you Florida, I'm going home.

a big new porch.

The title, of course, is for you Justin. I've found a new porch; perhaps I'll take a picture and you could think of me there when it's cold and raining. :) I'll get to it later on - first, a brief tour of Gainesville's highlights.

It was the ideal Shannon-day, loafing around all morning with coffee. I biked downtown for the afternoon and explored: it started out as a search for a new guitar but as usual, rapidly devolved into wandering toward whatever interesting thing next presented itself. I commiserated with a former New Yorker who opened a music store here (why? would you do this to yourself?). I pored through stacks of shitty used CD's and DVD's at Hear-It-Again CD's, which I mistakenly thought was the record store Laura had mentioned.

Note to fellow Gainesvillians: It was in fact a warehouse for useless crap no one would ever want to re-purchase (e.g. 8 Ace of Base CD's), topped off with a few worthwhile things that, because someone might actually want them, were exorbitantly overpriced. Hey Hear-It-Again: there is no excuse for selling "Heathers" for $12.99. Winona would be very disappointed. She'd probably steal it just to spite you. So would I.

I found a feminist bookstore with scant but well-selected poetry. Walked out with a $3 used Rumi, half-price Levertov, and a bergamot-oatmeal soap so lovely-smelling I can't decide whether to rub myself with it or stick it in my mouth. Next I found Flashback, a resale shop with a wicked upstairs collection of home stuff. The owner just hits up local garage sales and flea markets: one of the hidden treasures of North Central Florida is the many, many people with cool old shit who sell it off for pennies. Owl-shaped olive green salt & pepper shakers? Yes please!

I thought the day had hit its high point with sidewalk dinner at the Top, reading the new poetry books, drinking coffee, smoking cloves, light breeze... but when I finally found a guitar, I also found my favorite place. A big old house set back along a street overhung with spanish moss and big trees. Tim & Terry's has a crowded music store upstairs, a bar downstairs, a living room for live shows, and a huge porch out front. They have live music every night - folk, bluegrass, reggae, metal - and music lessons for guitar, fiddle or mando. Not a grad student in sight. It's like a smaller, even-less-bureaucratic Old Town School with a much larger beer selection. Dangerously conducive to long hours of hanging out. Case in point: I bought the guitar, I sat on the porch and played it, called Rae, we had beer, we stayed til 3.

It may just fill the biggest hole of homesickness. It's the place, the beer and music and smoking and hanging out, but of course it's also the people. Perhaps it was growing up with brothers, with music around me, who knows - but hanging out with a bunch of easygoing guys puts me right at home. The Tim & Terry's clientele is mostly that. Ben, remembering you banging on the guitar while I shouted Weezer lyrics at the ceiling still makes me grin. :) And eating blue cheese fries with Pat, and Joe singing "Man in the Mirror" at the top of his lungs. Jason making Stewie impressions and stalking me in the kitchen. We had some good times; thanks for letting me hang out. You guys are irreplaceable. But it's good to find a place to be at home. Maybe, if I'm lucky, someone'll condescend to join me for danger karaoke.

the lizards are breeding in my kitchen cabinets.

Stop yourself now, I'm too tired to write anything interesting. And too tired to keep quiet. Friday night and I'm intentionally at home, watching movies, curled like dead weight on the couch. Exhausted from hours of teaching old folks to play Tetris, testing their memories, and today: patting their backs while they puke after our driving simulator. Oh, research is so much cooler than you ever imagined. If I'd known they hand out PhDs for washing plastic buckets, I'd have left the caregiving racket years earlier and saved myself some time.

Moments ago, I discovered ANOTHER baby lizard darting across my couch. I've seen them on the wall, the stairs, under the sink... I'd be creeped out if I wasn't already resigned to existence in Florida, Wildlife Adventureland. Rather than spend the few useful seconds he was in sight catching him in a cup and maybe saving him, I chased him around with a camera:



He's still behind the couch somewhere. Welcome to my home, little critter. Don't let Shaniqua eat you like she does the cockroaches, and my food when I'm not looking (Bad combination).

Speaking of whom: yes, you read correctly. She's eating. Those of you who've heard my loud laments these past weeks, I correct myself. Shaniqua is not going to die. She's back to following me around the house every morning, sluttily pretending to love me for food, then wolfing it (ignoring me of course) as soon as she gets it. She's been through a lot lately, and my hating on her for the first month here probably didn't help. (I just don't feel like cuddling a cat when I want to jump off a cliff myself. Sorry Shnekers.) Anyway, looks like the panicked excess of love brought her back around. To make up for weeks of shoving her off my lap, here's a pictorial tribute to my visibly perked-up ittle trooper:

Looking out the back window, hunting lizards with mind bullets

She's not the stealthiest of stalkers.

All you need is love. :)

I wish I had time to lounge this much.

learn by going where to go.

In "The Waking", possibly my all-time favorite poem, Theodore Roethke writes:

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

I've held onto those words for years. Learn by going where to go. It's never been so hard to do as it has this year. In connecting with some of my classmates, I discovered we're all miserable and scared. Beyond the expected pains of moving, we share the same essential fear: that we're wasting our irretrievable twenties in a cultural vaccuum, slaves to academia. Our friends are back home, working the same entry-level jobs we started with, and they'll move up but they don't have to move away to get there. We miss hanging out, being done with work at 5pm, partying til late. We party together here but it's not the same yet; we don't like each other nearly as much as we like the friends we already had.

We know growing up happens now. The twenties don't last forever, and when we come out the other side of this the world we said goodbye to won't be there waiting. There is fun we'll miss. I hate missing fun. But I've learned to remind myself that it would never have lasted. Everyone grows up. People get married, have families, life changes focus and you stop staying out late. If I let this chance pass me by for fear of missing fun, I'd eventually find myself empty-handed, having never gone where I need to go.

I'm beginning to understand my time here as a sacrifice. I don't like Gainesville, but I realize it's not about me liking it. Fun, dear as it is to me, is not as important as living a life I'm satisfied with at its end. It could never erase the regret of not doing the best I could have done. I have this remarkable opportunity to offer people help it takes years to learn how to give. By learning here I'll be able to help well. If I can serve usefully where there's a need, with my own brand of warmth (for what it's worth), I'd be happy with the life I chose. I'd give up my comfort and fun for a few years to be that fulfilled.

(To those of you I love: you are not just fun to me. Although you're super fun and I miss that. Just don't hear me dismissing you as a passing good time. Good friends, you're always important to me. I love you and need you in my life wherever you are.)

I waited til one good friend got it in the mail before I posted this poem: I found it, of all places, in my new research lab.


stages / herman hesse

As every flower fades and as all youth
Departs, so life at every stage,
So every virtue, so our grasp of truth,
Blooms in its day and may not last forever.
Since life may summon us at every age
Be ready, heart, for parting, new endeavor,
Be ready bravely and without remorse
To find new light that old ties cannot give.
In all beginnings dwells a magic force
For guarding us and helping us to live.

Serenely let us move to distant places
And let no sentiments of home detain us.
The Cosmic Spirit seeks not to restrain us
But lifts us stage by stage to wider spaces.
If we accept a home of our own making,
Familiar habit makes for indolence.
We must prepare for parting and leave-taking
Or else remain the slave of permanence.

Even the hour of our death may send
Us speeding on to fresh and newer spaces,
And life may summon us to newer races.
So be it, heart: bid farewell without end.

time a husk.

Why lay yourself on the torturer's rack of the past and future?
the mind that tries to shape tomorrow beyond its capacities
will find no rest.

Be kind to yourself, dear - to our innocent follies.
Forget any sounds or touch you knew
that did not help you dance.
We will come to see that all evolves us.

-Rumi

big up to the blue box.

I have a cold. How this happens in balmy - ahem, sweltering - Florida... ? Most evenings I'm up with a fury: an hour of running (no, I didn't see that coming either) followed by dinner and a full-on attack at whatever scholarly task I've put off longest. But I've overdone it - I get to bed and just keep thinking til the wee hours. Which has culminated in achy, sore-throated sleepiness.

So I'm on auto-pilot, heavy-lidded. Blissfully inert. And while I've been very ambitious about healthy, balanced eating, tonight saw the return of childhood's best staple food: Kraft macaroni & cheese. Yeeeeaaaahhhhh. I was raised on fried bologna sandwiches and frozen fish sticks. It could be worse. I'm sure whatever's in that weird cheese powder is working wonders - it's like a rock in my stomach, it's even harder to move, but oh how at peace I am, half asleep with a tummy full of mac & cheese.

It might just need some kombucha to wash it down though. I have grown up a little.

the new world.

Reclined in my old chaise lounge listening to crickets and Adagio of Dvorak's New World, neither of which I ever tire. After an exciting half hour of chasing around the house, a very content little cat's curled under my arm, her nose tucked against my wrist. Purring is an understatement. If cooing is possible, Shaniqua is cooing.

It's hard to imagine why this quiet, solitary life has been so hard to accept. It's good hearing what my own head has to say given some space and silence. It's nice to get in with hammer and drill and make a place my own, to fill it with Nag Champa and cooking smells. (Today I tried my hand at orange cornmeal biscuits with vanilla peaches-and-cream; not half bad.)

It is, still, lonely. I haven't hugged anyone since I arrived nearly three weeks ago. I'm still thirsty for familiar voices. But I know how it happens - how people grow slowly into your life, how you never know quite where they'll come from but they do. I know it takes patience, an open heart, and in the meantime you learn to be your own good company. You take care of yourself with what makes you feel alive and loved. Thankfully, I'm pretty damn good company. :)

I'm surrounded by good people too, people who are strangers now but won't stay that way. Tonight I had dinner with friends I've seen a few times; I'm starting to learn their habits and ways of speaking. I rode bikes home with a new friend and found we had lots in common. And at school I'm in a class of smart, cool women (and three equally-cool men), strong-minded, lively students who are even more fun when they're not working.

This new life stuff takes time, but there are many doors open to me. I know how to support myself until I have close supporters around me, and the foundations are already made. I miss my loved ones, but I will be all right here. Just, you know, don't forget to call me now and then.

extraordinary kindness.

Hero of the Day: Pini, fantastic Pini, for going far beyond the call of duty. The office guy on the other end of the phone, who for days had been working to arrange delivery of my stuff after the aforementioned carelessness of the Chicago van line who told him I was in Gainesville Georgia (ASAP; remember and avoid). Though this delay was through no fault of his own, Pini - who also turns out to own the Atlanta-based Mars Van Lines - took it upon himself to rent a small truck from Enterprise, drive to Valdosta, load my things from the larger truck, drive to Gainesville Florida and unload everything by himself. On a Saturday no less, and in a thunderstorm. Pini, you are my hero. I was floored by the distance you went to help me out, dealing with a mess you weren't at fault for, because you knew I was miserable.

Heroes of the Rest of the Week (since The Day is taken): Dan, Sandra, and Ryan, for making Saturday even better. Dan, a property manager for many of the apartment communities in Gainesville, heard of my plight and volunteered to bring me furniture out of the excess supply they were getting rid of. As Pini carried the last things in, these three showed up with a trailer holding a matching bedroom set (full bed, headboard, dresser, night stand) and dining room set, carried them in and put everything together. I've done nothing to receive such generosity and could give little more back than water and Coke, but I'm very grateful. You all made my good day a great one, and thanks to you I slept like a baby that first night in my apartment.

Heroes of Last Week: Ali and Lisa, lovely classmates who took me in. These girls gave me a place to stay, a shower and towels, cereal to eat, a giant air mattress, and best of all good company during a difficult first couple of nights in Florida. Thanks for covering me when you didn't even know me. Your hospitality made a world of difference in those first couple days.

Heroes for All Time: All the loved ones who picked up the phone for me the past week. Thanks for your patience, for listening, for taking the time to let me be heard and understood. And then for making me laugh and get over it.

Thanks to the remarkable thoughtfulness of these people, I finally have something resembling a home here. My jars of grains and spices are stacked in the kitchen window; my clothes are hanging in the closet. I'm still adjusting, but there are odd moments of goodness: tonight I rode my bike home from the movie theater under a spectacular lightning storm, and realized for the first time how much of the sky I can see here. You forget how expansive it is. And how good air smells when it's filled with the fragrance of plants and fresh grass. Mostly, I remembered (finally) that happiness doesn't have all that much to do with where you are. You make your own life good by seeing what there is to see, where you are. Although I maintain that beauty's still scarce at Wal-Mart. It's here. I'm willing to look for it.

like the fox

It's long, but for anyone who hasn't read this yet - it's one I always come back to. By Antoine de Saint-Exupery; translated from the French by Katherine Woods.



It was then that the fox appeared.

"Good morning," said the fox.
"Good morning," the little prince responded politely, although when he turned around he saw nothing.
"I am right here," the voice said, "under the apple tree."
"Who are you?" asked the little prince, and added, "You are very pretty to look at."
"I am a fox," the fox said.
"Come and play with me," proposed the little prince. "I am so unhappy."
"I cannot play with you," the fox said. "I am not tamed."
"Ah! Please excuse me," said the little prince.

But, after some thought, he added: "What does that mean--'tame'?"
"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. "It means to establish ties."
"'To establish ties'?"

"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . ."

"My life is very monotonous," the fox said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow.

And then look: you see the grain-fields down over there? I don't eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I will love to listen to the wind in the wheat . . ."

The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time.
"Please--tame me!" he said.
"I want to, very much," the little prince replied. "But I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand."

"One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox. "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me . . ."

"What must I do, to tame you?" asked the little prince.
"You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you will sit down at a little distance from me--like that--in the grass. I'll look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you won't say anything. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But every day, you'll sit a little closer to me . . ."

The next day the little prince came back.
"It would have been better to come back at the same hour," said the fox. "If, for example, you come at four o'clock in the afternoon, then at three o'clock I will begin to be happy. I'll feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o'clock, I'll already be worrying and jumping about. I will understand what happiness costs! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you . . . One must observe the proper rites . . ."

"What is a rite?" asked the little prince.
"Those also are actions too often neglected," said the fox. "They are what make one day different from other days, one hour from other hours. There is a rite, for example, among my hunters. Every Thursday they dance with the village girls. So Thursday is a wonderful day for me! I can take a walk as far as the vineyards. But if the hunters danced at just any time, every day would be like every other day, and I should never have any vacation at all."

So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near:

"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."
"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you . . ."
"Yes, that is so," said the fox.
"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.
"Yes, that is so," said the fox.
"Then it has done you no good at all!"
"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat. . ."

manifesto.

So, friends, every day do something
that wont compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

from Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Wendell Berry, I apologize to you. I, no farmer at all (let alone a mad one), steal regularly from your manifesto. I remember giving it away - one of my favorites - for someone else to read one night. She hurled it at us, all breathy and urgent. Her first poetry reading. And it is a manifesto, worthy of impassioned expression. But our dear angst-ridden reader missed the wild, joyful abandonment the poem is really all about. This is no deathbed epilogue. It's a revolution against what we think is happiness; it catapults us forward into heady, unpredictable, savagely beautiful mystery.

This mystery is my point. My reason. I've learned more or less how to survive living by now; I can get through what comes. And although that's no simple feat, there is more and I want it. I seek out what's hard work, what's ridiculous and maybe impossible. I wondered with a friend recently whether our generation is too tired for conventional beauty, for coherent themes and familiar patterns. Instead we seek out a harsher version of loveliness - jarring, dissonant, strange beauty that leaves us with more questions than answers. I want the meanings which explode out of absurdity, truth which reveals itself all the more vibrantly because it arises from the incomprehensible.

Conventional wisdom still applies: often what seems nonsensical or unfeasible really is. But I'm a fervently optimistic realist. I'm not sorry when I don't succeed - or even terribly surprised - and I'm not sad when the nights are long. I've let go of life the way I expected it, finding the tenacity instead to live life as it's given, without answers. I'm striving still for the best it could be, although it would be easier to secede and self-protect. But, if you can find a way to hang on - you're sometimes gifted with the strangest, most unexpected loveliness. One you wouldn't have foreseen, one completely absurd, but which is entirely worthwhile.

you rock.

This blog's to say I love you. Because if you're reading this you're probably a friend, and lately I've had the surprising good fortune of learning (or remembering) what good friends I have.

Yooooouuu guys. Have got me covered. It's not often any of us gets chances to make it apparent, and I like to take care of everything myself, but how you've each stepped in and done that lately is more than I'd have asked for. You call and write and call again. You make a to-do over important things when I can't. You speak your mind instead of offering empty platitudes. You're smart, and funny. You know what I'm not saying. You give me credit for the fortitude and intuition to look after myself but you look after me anyway.

As ever, I'm fine, mostly. But because of you I'm also deeply blessed. There's something more than getting by. Which we all can do on our own. Sharing with wise, solid, vibrant people makes every experience better than a thing to be gotten through; it's a refreshing reason for living. A reminder of how good it is to love and be loved. All this to say that you, my dear friends, you rock. Thanks.

ferocious.

olderol also falderal n.
1. Foolishness; nonsense.

rubicon n.
1. A limit that when passed or exceeded permits of no return and typically results in irrevocable commitment.

vicissitude n.
1. a. A change or variation.
b. The quality of being changeable; mutability.
2. One of the sudden or unexpected changes or shifts often encountered in one's life, activities, or surroundings. Often used in the plural. See Synonyms: difficulty.

Rick Whitaker wrote that his best and worst times were almost simultaneous: that when he was living full-out with real ferocity he was also suffering from a crisis of hopelessness, wildly alive and nearly dead at the same time. But this kind of ferocity is a prison. There's no freedom in frantically living against the hopeless future bulging toward you. Instead. I think there's a wiser ferocity, propelled not by sheer force but by awareness. Intention. (I still call this ferocity: wisdom takes tenacity to turn into action.)

Wise ferocity doesn't wildly resist. It allows what is to be as it is. It goes where good sense sends it, like water to a valley. And one of life's best gifts is its endless mutability. What doesn't work can change, can always change. Following the path of these little vicissitudes reveals such unexpected blessings. While blind struggling breeds despair, giving in, surprisingly, can turn hopelessness completely on its head.