Something you might like to know

August has been so fantastic that, as you can see, blogging was relegated to the back burner … and then fell off, got stuck behind the stove, and is only now being hauled back out and dusted.

It’s been an month of up and down, certainly. But that wise old Oswald Chambers said, “faith by its very nature must be tried.”

I’m exhausted and everything I write comes out sounding pompous tonight, so here’s the Announcement, after which I will retire in haste.

Tuesday was the official beginning of New Direction. My first of day of nursing school came and went. And yes, you did hear that correctly! Send me a flabbergasted e-mail and I promise to give my best shot at a well-thought out response. For now, take my word for it: it wasn’t the answer I’d been looking for, wasn’t the easiest choice, and I’m still second-guessing it. However, it’s excellent in close to every way and sits just right with my gut (which I’m still learning to trust).

Tomorrow begins two more classes, neither of which I’m feeling very intrepid about. Math and I just haven’t hit off well … ever. But I’m convinced it can be tackled with excellence – though I’m also sure there will be tears involved at some point in time.

Anyway, that’s a quick and messy summary of my life: school is exciting; job is great; health is better; community is precious and sweet; too many good books to read, as always.

I’ve had a sense of being super-blessed lately. Just lots of amazing Things all coming together, both in my head and heart as well as in friends-life-bank account-everything. Tuesday, I took all afternoon to sit out on the hill in the sunshine and start a new notebook. A goody book, as Madeleine L’Engle calls it. The kind that’s waiting to be filled with quotes, inspiration, goals, and jumbles of thoughts. It was fulfilling to both sides of me: the pragmatist and the dreamer. It’s so good to dream, to capture those pages of hopes and visions for my life. It’s also intensely satisfying to sit down and formulate specific goals.

Somewhere way back up there, I mentioned going to bed. Since you now know how I coddle my inner pragmatist and are aware I’m going to nursing school, I guess it’s good night, with promises for better things soon.

Getting mail from an old you

Before leaving Russia, I mailed 6 packages home. Books, dictionaries, 10 months worth of notes from classes. All the heavy stuff that would have had me paying ridiculous amounts of money in various airports. At the post office, the woman told me, with a totally straight face, that they would arrive in the states in about a month. I contained my laughter until I made it out the door and had serious doubts about ever seeing my beloved 501 Russian Verbs book again. But apparently they got their act together – I’ve received 3 packages in the last 4 days. Faithfulness in the least expected places, I tell ya.

Flipping through my notes and text books brings a strange wash of emotions. Once upon a time, I wrote my grocery list in Russian, just because I wanted to. Here, on my desk, are hundreds of pages covered in a different language. It’s mind-boggling to remember I would go for days without speaking English. The thought is unfathomable now.

Fighting the “my life exists in a toilet bowl” thoughts has been a Thing this week. I have lots of purpose, sense and calling, schemes, dreams … they’re just not arriving as quickly as I’d like them to. Or I’m unsure of how to make my way towards them. What is the means to my end, anyway?

As always, the questions come quickly and effortlessly; answers, considerably less so.

And now, to lighten the mood …

A brief refresher
Chocolate: the best, no matter what other atrocious things are in it
Vanilla: bland but edible
Strawberry: full of chunks of fake fruit that proceed to squirm between your teeth and stay there for eternity

My life, according to ice cream:

Watching Lars and the Real Girl … cinematic perfection in every subtle way.
Successfully hemming jeans so they actually fit.
Getting packages from myself.
My sister coming home from London.
Having a sinus infection in August (why?!?!).
Cutting off my hair. Bahhhhh … I … am going … to learn to like it … again.
Blowing my nose constantly; my most attractive trait.
 Lots of miscellaneous creative activities.
Potential situation of employment.
Having a beautiful red motorcycle helmet and jacket in my possession and no bike on which to ride.
Having a car that runs.
Soft kleenex and honey-lemon tea.
Being cell-phone-less.
Crickets outside my window.
 

And we conclude: I have tons to be grateful for, lots that’s perfectly tolerable, very little that’s worth whining about. Hmph. Humbling.

Constructive creativity

Today I put on my old raggy jeans and a dirty t-shirt, armed myself with music from The Idan Raichel Project, and skipped out to the studio. My first time digging into clay in 10+ months and I’ve got to say, there’s nothing like coming in for dinner at 6 pm with porcelain under every nail.

I like the feeling of accomplishment and the main point of writing tonight is so I can wallow in knowing I did a little more than read a book today. I tackled laundry and unpacking from the trip, was responsible and wrote a billion e-mails, began to tack things up in my room and make it a prettier (if not larger) monk’s cell, mowed the pastures, and spent a few hours out potting. 

Solitude is still agreeing with me. I’m charging my social batteries up for this weekend, I suppose.

A puzzling thought came to me as I filled up glasses of ice water for dinner. Our ice machine in the freezer makes hollow ice cubs. How do you draw a hollow ice cube? I considered it, but eventually went with dandelions for an evening sketch instead.

As you’ll see from the pictures below, there’s a ton of zucchini inhabiting the refrigerator. I actually have a recipe for zucchini chocolate chip cookies, but somehow can’t bring myself to do the deed: it’s just too weird. But then again, we have to eat it one way or another, and I’d rather have mine with chocolate chips, thank you very much.

Agh! What do you do with this much zuchini?

Poker face

I’m not a cat person, but they never fail to amuse

Clearly hard at work in the studio

Coldplay all day (and the reason I’m fond of long car rides).

As hard as I’ve tried (trust me, very hard) to ruin the new Coldplay album by overplaying, it hasn’t happened yet. I introduced my mom and sister to it today on the tremendously long car ride home and it kept playing and playing. Lost track somewhere along the way, but I’d say it was on repeat for at least 3 hours. Now that I think about it, it seems kind of gross. We even put it back in after going through a Father Indie mix, a Disney mix, and some Sufjan. But am I sick of it? No way.

I didn’t get nearly as many pictures at the party as I’d hoped; I was playing barmaid for most of the night, which turned out to be highly entertaining and a great way to meet my grandparents’ friends without extended awkward conversation. By the way, my grandmother and I had a bet ($5) that someone would/wouldn’t ask the great grandchild question. I actually lost, but she didn’t tip me for my wine-pouring skills either, so we called it even.

If I could, I’d make sure to take a road trip with somebody different every year. The varied conversations that come out of scenic landscapes, tailgaters, various red lights on the dashboard, silly word games, the latest Drive mix … they never fail to delight. Chatting with my mom on the way to Michigan and back was plain old fun, especially when we made her go through the whole How She and Dad Met story.

Being home is getting stranger. Maybe it’s slowly sinking in that I’m not just back for a visit. The thought of going back to college makes me squirm, the thought of being a bum scares me more. I’m finding it difficult to concentrate; interacting with a large group of people is still completely overwhelming and I find I’m happiest and least self-conscious when with a single person and no pressure to talk. Give it time, yeah yeah. When someone asks the What Are You Going To Do Next question, sensations of being a small bug with a magnifying glass between itself and the bright sun creep over me.

Bah! At least there’s Coldplay, right? It’s always odd what we find comfort in.

“There’s nothing terribly wrong with feeling lost, so long as that feeling precedes some plan on your part to actually do something about it. Too often a person grows complacent with their disillusionment, perpetually wearing their discomfort like a favorite shirt.”
- Jhonen Vasquez

I’m afraid I’m sporting a dirty shirt of disillusionment.

Umqombothi (African beer)

I recently came into some music, mostly of the World variety. Tonight, as the Hotel Rwanda soundtrack failed to lull me asleep, I noticed the name of the song playing. Umqombothi. What can one do with such terrific words but google them? If you have nothing better to do, try it out on Wikipedia and be proud of yourself for learning something new and of moderate interest.

Speaking of Wikipedia, I’ve lately made it a personal quest to read one article per day. This augments my routine of late, breaking it up a bit, as in: get up; eat breakfast while reading a book, National Review, or the Atlantic; find a patch of sunshine, read a book; eat lunch, usually while reading; spend some time reading online … and so on. I go for walks and watch movies from Netflix (seen two excellent Iranian films recently). It’s a nice rhythm to be in. I’m not sure I could stand it for an extended period of time, but it’s still less than 3 weeks since I’ve been home (hard to believe).

Tomorrow, it’s off to Michigan for the grandparents’ 50th anniversary shindig. I have high hopes for some nice photo opportunities; purchased film and all that. I can’t wait for the hints about when the great grandkids are coming along.

I’m truly home, having experienced Walmart and its fine additions to the bliss of mankind.

This morning I’m going on a drive with the family (sans middle sister). We have plans to meet up with Erick a few hours away at a state park. For poor oblivious people, Erick is my brother, and he’s hiking the Appalachian trail this summer. He’s made it to Pennsylvania and so we’re going to visit for the day. I’m very excited, because it’s been over 10 months since the last time we saw each other (and he’s a generally neat boy/man). There’s a rumor going around that he has substantial facial hair now … I’m unsure how to feel about that.

I made it 13 days without going to Walmart. Broke yesterday and went along with my dear mom. I shan’t even try to describe it. I will only mention that I felt very self-conscious in my moderately scuzzy t-shirt and shorts all the way there … but once we were in the store, I felt, dare I say it, nearly classy. Channeling Audrey in an old gymnastics shirt and flip-flops. Funny, because I would never dare, in a million years, to go anywhere in Russia looking like that. People dress up to go get a newspaper from the kiosk down the street. I guess looking like a slob indicates you have better things to do with precious time than make yourself look remotely presentable. The rest of us are envious of your self-confidence and poise. The harsh reality of life is that only a few can look really nice in a skin-tight, sleeves-hacked-off, paint-stained t-shirt that’s pushing 8 years old (yes, we can still see that faded puff-paint date from 2000).

On a totally different note, I’ve been reading a lot since coming home; it’s a wonderfully antisocial activity.

I just finished Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver. It was terrific, as well as it offered a nice balance and follow-up to Michael Pollon’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which I read last summer. It also had me laughing out loud a few times … great hilarity seems guaranteed when a family decides to forsake the typical American mindset about food and nutrition.

Brian McLaren’s latest, Everything Must Change, has had a terrible affect on my breakfasting these last few days. I find myself so engrossed that cereal is forgotten … and therefore becomes soggy … and there’s not much I loathe more than a bowl of overly-saturated flakes that’s lost its rightful crunch. Anyway, good terrific book: challenging, well-written, clear but not so precise as to lose the idea of the story all together. I agree with much of it so far, and McLaren possesses the ability to articulate exactly what I’ve been wanting to say but never had the words to make it cohesive, accurate, or true. I’d recommend it to almost everyone – no matter where you are, it’ll raise questions that ought to be at the very forefront of our thinking these days (in my very humble opinion).

And, last but not least, for you truly dedicated souls who’ve gotten this far: I can still do a full-twisting back layout on the trampoline. It’s hardly pretty, but it’s definitely a full! Some things you can never forget, I guess.

Overloaded

Through a series of events, none of which are really worth chronicling, my dad got was driving a lovely Honda over the weekend while someone borrowed his (much larger) vehicle for moving. So this nice little blue Accord was hanging out in our driveway and I will admit to a few moments of lustful thinking, imagining what it would be like to drive it. Anyway, my dear father offered to spend an hour giving me a refresher in driving on a stick shift, so we went out this morning. It began splendidly with a small burn-out in our driveway, continued with my dad finding every hill in the county for me to practice on, and ended with no major mishaps (I know you’re thinking, ‘geez, how absolutely riveting’).

When we were in a parking lot, I could concentrate on getting everything just right and occasionally eliciting a ‘yesssss’ from my dad. But on the road, it’s a totally different story: I’m worrying about stalling in an intersection, trying to think about 130 different things at once, avoid oncoming traffic, and ‘listen to the engine’ (I still don’t hear the difference). It’s terrifying – I’m convinced I’ve forgotten to check my mirrors, or step on the clutch, or am just so busy concentrating on hearing the magical noise in the engine that I’m going to forget where the brake is.

When we got home, my mom inquired about how it went, and I said, “stressful.” It’s all so much to think about after not driving for 10 months. And, it turns out, this phenomenon doesn’t stay in the car, but rather has permeated all of my Being Home. It’s not just bigger grocery stores or wireless internet. It’s a different world – where I’m lost trying to figure out which cell phone plan will screw me over the least. The light switches are different. I keep checking for my passport and documents in my purse and panicking when they’re not there. Hearing English all day is strange. I forget words and lose my train of thought pretty consistently. I have fun with friends but would rather be home, going for a walk or holed up with a book.

Give it time, right?
 

 

 

 

 

Vent nouveau

Ladies and gentlemen, I present you with my latest and greatest waste of cyberspace.

I’ve always been a journal-hopper. It’s difficult to stay in the same one; I always run across one with a lovelier leather smell than my current notebook. Or I fluctuate between blank and lined pages. The blanks, I feel, encourage doodling. But I loathe my crooked handwriting flying up and down, this way and that. And yet all those straight lines totally stunt my creativity. I hate drawing over and around and through them. It seems this inability to commit has followed me into blog world.

But then again, why not? Everything else is new; why not change the blog too?

I’ve got no great segue into this one … being home is one of the stranger experiences of my short little life.

It’s been 4 days since I landed back in the US and I’ve spent most of them in my room or going for walks. 

Many people were kind enough to guide me through the leaving, the arriving, the settling in, the staying alive, the winding down, and the leaving processes. I felt adequately prepared to face the beast of culture shock, which never seemed to rear its head. I paid attention when told not to step on manhole covers and managed to avoid being hit by a tram. Saying goodbye to new-but-dear friends was especially sad, but I had time in Turkey to look forward to. A lot of hand-holding and helpful advice went into all those mini-seasons. Nobody’s ever called me smooth but I think most everything turned out in the right direction.

But now … oh, now. It feels like the windshield’s iced over, the radio’s dead, and I’m running out of beef jerky. Don’t get me wrong – I’m thrilled to see my parents, siblings, friends, etc. It’s the thought that life simply isn’t as ridiculously exciting in my lovely little town of 1000. It’s the thought of not riding public transportation, eavesdropping on conversations and getting in fights with the conductress. It’s the thought of going to Walmart instead of the central market; what do you mean, set prices? No haggling?

My first morning at home, over a bowl of cereal, I told my mother (very solemnly, mind you), “Um, mom? I think I’m going to cry a lot.” She, in her infinite wisdom, smiled and said, “that’s fine.”

In a week, I suspect I’ll read this and sigh: “What a drama queen I’ve become.” But for now, it feels nice and accurate; the hours I spent staring down my suitcase, knowing that if I unpacked it meant I was here for good. In Russia, there was the anticipation I felt nearly every morning, the thought of another day stuffed with opportunities to be intrepid … Can I do that here too?

“Remember that these things are mysteries and that if they were such that we could understand them, they wouldn’t be worth understanding.”
- Flannery O’Connor