Oi.
It hasn't quite hit me yet that this is my last day at home for three weeks, getting up early and running, then walking and working in the garden with my mom; eating breakfast on the front porch and reading; fixing salads and baking; writing, using our lush garden as inspiration; relaxing with my rabbit in my lap as I read a good book; settling in at night and reading myself to sleep while visions of the day just gone by and the next one coming up dance through my head; along with the things that aren't as relaxing, that I have to do...which isn't much, now that summer's started (really just getting ready for China).
Tomorrow at this time I'll be on a plane...and I won't be in Hong Kong until...9-ish in the morning our time. (I believe that's right.)
Anyway. Wow. I'm trying to make the most of this last day...but I don't want to do anything monumentally special. Just...have a calm, normal day. Eat some fresh fruit! Since I can't have that in China unless it's peel-able. Don't be surprised if you hear from me later...but don't be surprised if you don't. After all, I don't want to spend all of my time on the computer. Gotta soak up that Yellow Springs energy!
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Malls, Thunder, Strawberries, and Purses
I told you there was more to tell about my day yesterday.
My mom and I went shopping for stuff for China. And now I think I have everything I need, except a pair of really nice-looking, comfortable, walking shoes...which I already have an alternative of. Anyway, we had to go to the mall: I hate the mall. I even begin to despise myself when I go in there. Unfortunately, sometimes you've just got to go to it, but I really wish that wasn't so. It all feels so wasteful and unnecessary, and like it's just a huge lie, a pocket away from reality, where one doesn't have anything one really has to do. Besides buy, buy, buy.
I mentioned the weird weather yesterday. It really was one of the weirdest days, weather-wise, that I've ever experienced. It was raining and thundering in the morning, with eventually some lightning. Then that died down, and while we were out shopping it was sunny and hot. Later, at about 6 or so, it started to thunder again, gradually working its way up to a rainstorm with lightning again. But here's the thing: I looked out of my window at 8:00 to see that it was almost completely dark out, but at 8:30 it was very light again. That was strange. This is all not to mention that it was windy, the kind of wind that reminds me of a hurricane because it seems to swirl around and around, then tempt the rain to join it. Fortunately, I don't think there's much of a chance of us getting a hurricane in Ohio.
This morning I woke up early and worked in the garden with my mother. (This time weird nightmarish dreams didn't get in the way of my sleep.) I like getting up early so that I can begin the day's productivity before the day itself really begins. I don't really like doing things in the middle of the day, especially when it's so agonizingly hot outside, so I much prefer to wake up early, get some exercise or just start my day, relax in the middle of the day (read, blog, make some good food, be sleepy...), then get a little more exercise and accomplish a few more things at night. I'm much more agreeable that way.
One of the things we did was picking strawberries! It's terrifically fun and satisfying: each little berry is like a piece of gold in a mine of green leaves and soil. You get so focused that you don't even realize how much you've picked, and then look at your basket to discover that it already contains a couple of jars' worth of strawberries! Sometime today my mother and I are going to make strawberry rhubarb sauce, or possibly pie, with all the berries we've acquired.
We went to the street fair today. It's held two times, once in June and then again in October, and it's a fun event, but more so for people who live out of town, I think. It really just consists of a whole bunch of booths, at least a third of which must sell jewelry, filling up the length of two of the main streets downtown. My mom and I went down there to buy gifts for my hosts families in China, and we settled on some packs of gift cards, bookmarks, and magnets with beautiful pictures of some places in Glen Helen. I also got a really pretty skirt, and then we picked up our box of food from the farming CSA we're a part of. (More strawberries!) Anyway, at the street fair, there are an abundance of purses. Purses of all kinds of sizes, shapes, patterns, materials, colors... And each one seems more tempting than the next. Of course, I always look at those things only entertaining a sort of admiring fancy, never setting my thoughts in order to actually be thinking of buying one. Which is good - I never go there expecting to get something or necessarily even wanting to. So when I do find something I really like, I feel like it's a good buy - and not that I'm being luxurious!
I also got a book on China, from the used book store downtown (which smells of old books, and has tons of them, along with a black cat who's always hanging around...it's a nice place to go for some quiet; I think the many pages and pages contained in the books absorb all the noise or something). It's a big thick one from Lonely Planet, and it has a lot more information than I need, but some very useful things just the same.
I've really got to take a shower now, and then I think I'll give in to my sleepiness and simply settle down with a good book. Ah, I'm looking forward to that... Soon, though, possibly later tonight, I've got to start packing early for China! (WOW, I'm leaving in less than a week! And trying to pack in as many blog posts as I can.)
My mom and I went shopping for stuff for China. And now I think I have everything I need, except a pair of really nice-looking, comfortable, walking shoes...which I already have an alternative of. Anyway, we had to go to the mall: I hate the mall. I even begin to despise myself when I go in there. Unfortunately, sometimes you've just got to go to it, but I really wish that wasn't so. It all feels so wasteful and unnecessary, and like it's just a huge lie, a pocket away from reality, where one doesn't have anything one really has to do. Besides buy, buy, buy.
I mentioned the weird weather yesterday. It really was one of the weirdest days, weather-wise, that I've ever experienced. It was raining and thundering in the morning, with eventually some lightning. Then that died down, and while we were out shopping it was sunny and hot. Later, at about 6 or so, it started to thunder again, gradually working its way up to a rainstorm with lightning again. But here's the thing: I looked out of my window at 8:00 to see that it was almost completely dark out, but at 8:30 it was very light again. That was strange. This is all not to mention that it was windy, the kind of wind that reminds me of a hurricane because it seems to swirl around and around, then tempt the rain to join it. Fortunately, I don't think there's much of a chance of us getting a hurricane in Ohio.
This morning I woke up early and worked in the garden with my mother. (This time weird nightmarish dreams didn't get in the way of my sleep.) I like getting up early so that I can begin the day's productivity before the day itself really begins. I don't really like doing things in the middle of the day, especially when it's so agonizingly hot outside, so I much prefer to wake up early, get some exercise or just start my day, relax in the middle of the day (read, blog, make some good food, be sleepy...), then get a little more exercise and accomplish a few more things at night. I'm much more agreeable that way.
One of the things we did was picking strawberries! It's terrifically fun and satisfying: each little berry is like a piece of gold in a mine of green leaves and soil. You get so focused that you don't even realize how much you've picked, and then look at your basket to discover that it already contains a couple of jars' worth of strawberries! Sometime today my mother and I are going to make strawberry rhubarb sauce, or possibly pie, with all the berries we've acquired.
We went to the street fair today. It's held two times, once in June and then again in October, and it's a fun event, but more so for people who live out of town, I think. It really just consists of a whole bunch of booths, at least a third of which must sell jewelry, filling up the length of two of the main streets downtown. My mom and I went down there to buy gifts for my hosts families in China, and we settled on some packs of gift cards, bookmarks, and magnets with beautiful pictures of some places in Glen Helen. I also got a really pretty skirt, and then we picked up our box of food from the farming CSA we're a part of. (More strawberries!) Anyway, at the street fair, there are an abundance of purses. Purses of all kinds of sizes, shapes, patterns, materials, colors... And each one seems more tempting than the next. Of course, I always look at those things only entertaining a sort of admiring fancy, never setting my thoughts in order to actually be thinking of buying one. Which is good - I never go there expecting to get something or necessarily even wanting to. So when I do find something I really like, I feel like it's a good buy - and not that I'm being luxurious!
I also got a book on China, from the used book store downtown (which smells of old books, and has tons of them, along with a black cat who's always hanging around...it's a nice place to go for some quiet; I think the many pages and pages contained in the books absorb all the noise or something). It's a big thick one from Lonely Planet, and it has a lot more information than I need, but some very useful things just the same.
I've really got to take a shower now, and then I think I'll give in to my sleepiness and simply settle down with a good book. Ah, I'm looking forward to that... Soon, though, possibly later tonight, I've got to start packing early for China! (WOW, I'm leaving in less than a week! And trying to pack in as many blog posts as I can.)
Friday, June 10, 2011
Loss and a Place of Torture
Today...has been a strange day. About 35 minutes ago, I felt happy and content, then 30 minutes ago I felt like the stupidest person in the world.
First, I wake up at 6 a.m. after a dream about not being ready for school. I jumped out of bed the moment I realized that school was OVER, to find that a) I was sweating like a pig (I've never actually seen a pig sweat...do they really?), b) I really had to pee, and c) the rumbles of thunder were real, not in my dream (so that's why they didn't really fit the scene at all, I thought), which leads into d) I wasn't in a very deep sleep. I tried to go back to sleep, but never did completely, and for a couple hours afterward my bed became a place of torture and panic and indecision, which I was actually very glad to depart from when the time came. This meant that - and it's still true - my eyes have been simply slits in my head the whole day, slits that want to close and drift off to sleep any chance they get.
Funnily enough - though nothing about this is the slightest bit funny, and I'm totally not willing to even begin to think that way - the second horrible event of today also happened while I was on my bed. I had typed up a little piece of writing earlier, while I was sitting on the porch eating breakfast, on my iPhone. On the Notes app on my iPhone. It was a part of another something I'd started before, and I was inspired by the strange weather. So tonight, I was going to put it on my computer, possibly write some more and see where it would fit in. But instead of tapping the little envelope icon at the bottom of the Notes screen, I tapped the trash can instead.
I deleted my writing.
It felt like someone died. It felt like everyone had died, honestly, or like my own soul had departed and left a dry, crumpled, useless shell instead. It felt like the world was collapsing, like all the words and stories and memories of the world were gone forever.
I moaned, and I cried, I mourned, but I didn't forget what I had just deleted. I was completely panicked, but I forced my mind to work in hyper-drive to remember all of those words as best I could to re-write it. I wanted to collapse into my mother's arms. I wanted to eat a tub of ice cream. I wanted to tear my hair out, throw my iPhone (which is new, by the way - I got the updated version) into our creek, and beat the ground with my fists. I wanted to express my RAGE. But instead, I did what a writer must do, and I....wrote.
And what came out of it is, I think, pretty close to the original.
The strangest thing is that one of my first thoughts after I deleted it was, "It was meant to be." I never think things are meant to be! I'm not a believer in fate (which isn't to say that I'm a believer of free will either...but lets save that monologue for another time), and I never think about things that way. But even as I wrote, the thought kept racing through my head. "Meant to be, meant to be, meant to be..." And then I kept doing what I always do, defend the easy route, and defied that to say, "Yeah, but still, I DELETED MY WRITING!"...which would bring on another bout of tears. Why I thought this, and why I am so sure of it still, is a complete mystery, and one which I shall prevent myself from trying to solve right now...at all costs. No, I don't want to think about that right now.
At least I've blogged about it.
That's not even to mention the weird weird weird weather! There's more I could tell about today...more I will tell. But now, I need to leave this world. I need to go into the world of a book, disappear into it, into a place where people don't delete their writing, and if they do...you admire them afterward if they rewrite it. (So now, I suppose, I can admire myself. In the movie Little Women, the main character's sister burns a whole book of her writing because she's mad at the main character, who has to then rewrite the entire thing. I always thought, god, I would die, how would someone ever do that? I guess now I know.) I need to go to a place where there are no iPhones without a trash you can recover things from, no sleep deprivation, no places of torture that exist within your very own little "safe haven" of your own bed. I've gotta get OUT! And I'll be much more likable when I return.
First, I wake up at 6 a.m. after a dream about not being ready for school. I jumped out of bed the moment I realized that school was OVER, to find that a) I was sweating like a pig (I've never actually seen a pig sweat...do they really?), b) I really had to pee, and c) the rumbles of thunder were real, not in my dream (so that's why they didn't really fit the scene at all, I thought), which leads into d) I wasn't in a very deep sleep. I tried to go back to sleep, but never did completely, and for a couple hours afterward my bed became a place of torture and panic and indecision, which I was actually very glad to depart from when the time came. This meant that - and it's still true - my eyes have been simply slits in my head the whole day, slits that want to close and drift off to sleep any chance they get.
Funnily enough - though nothing about this is the slightest bit funny, and I'm totally not willing to even begin to think that way - the second horrible event of today also happened while I was on my bed. I had typed up a little piece of writing earlier, while I was sitting on the porch eating breakfast, on my iPhone. On the Notes app on my iPhone. It was a part of another something I'd started before, and I was inspired by the strange weather. So tonight, I was going to put it on my computer, possibly write some more and see where it would fit in. But instead of tapping the little envelope icon at the bottom of the Notes screen, I tapped the trash can instead.
I deleted my writing.
It felt like someone died. It felt like everyone had died, honestly, or like my own soul had departed and left a dry, crumpled, useless shell instead. It felt like the world was collapsing, like all the words and stories and memories of the world were gone forever.
I moaned, and I cried, I mourned, but I didn't forget what I had just deleted. I was completely panicked, but I forced my mind to work in hyper-drive to remember all of those words as best I could to re-write it. I wanted to collapse into my mother's arms. I wanted to eat a tub of ice cream. I wanted to tear my hair out, throw my iPhone (which is new, by the way - I got the updated version) into our creek, and beat the ground with my fists. I wanted to express my RAGE. But instead, I did what a writer must do, and I....wrote.
And what came out of it is, I think, pretty close to the original.
Fortunately, I solved a TV problem in less than a minute which my parents were getting frustrated about, right after I completed the rewriting. So that kind of made my night.
The strangest thing is that one of my first thoughts after I deleted it was, "It was meant to be." I never think things are meant to be! I'm not a believer in fate (which isn't to say that I'm a believer of free will either...but lets save that monologue for another time), and I never think about things that way. But even as I wrote, the thought kept racing through my head. "Meant to be, meant to be, meant to be..." And then I kept doing what I always do, defend the easy route, and defied that to say, "Yeah, but still, I DELETED MY WRITING!"...which would bring on another bout of tears. Why I thought this, and why I am so sure of it still, is a complete mystery, and one which I shall prevent myself from trying to solve right now...at all costs. No, I don't want to think about that right now.
At least I've blogged about it.
That's not even to mention the weird weird weird weather! There's more I could tell about today...more I will tell. But now, I need to leave this world. I need to go into the world of a book, disappear into it, into a place where people don't delete their writing, and if they do...you admire them afterward if they rewrite it. (So now, I suppose, I can admire myself. In the movie Little Women, the main character's sister burns a whole book of her writing because she's mad at the main character, who has to then rewrite the entire thing. I always thought, god, I would die, how would someone ever do that? I guess now I know.) I need to go to a place where there are no iPhones without a trash you can recover things from, no sleep deprivation, no places of torture that exist within your very own little "safe haven" of your own bed. I've gotta get OUT! And I'll be much more likable when I return.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Summer and Three Years
Yes, it's here, summer's here, no more school, no more MIDDLE school, oh my goodness, it's summer...
WOW.
I can't believe three whole years have gone by since I received that letter in the mail offering me the scholarship to Miami Valley School. I can't believe that almost three years ago, I met three girls whom I still share an (almost) undying friendship with (because there are those inevitable ups and downs). I can't believe that I am now, officially as of about 7:00 last night, a high schooler. I can't believe that I'll never again get up and go to school to walk into the blue-carpeted middle school commons. And I can't believe I'm leaving for China next week.
And those three years have been an invaluable, unforgettable, and enlightening experience. There were some extremely hard times, but I learned from every single one of them. And I tried, I always tried, to do my best. I put a bit of me into everything that I created. And that's hard - it took some of out of me. Frankly, I'm pretty exhausted now! Pretty ready for a break. Pretty ready for a pretty busy break...
WOW.
I can't believe three whole years have gone by since I received that letter in the mail offering me the scholarship to Miami Valley School. I can't believe that almost three years ago, I met three girls whom I still share an (almost) undying friendship with (because there are those inevitable ups and downs). I can't believe that I am now, officially as of about 7:00 last night, a high schooler. I can't believe that I'll never again get up and go to school to walk into the blue-carpeted middle school commons. And I can't believe I'm leaving for China next week.
And those three years have been an invaluable, unforgettable, and enlightening experience. There were some extremely hard times, but I learned from every single one of them. And I tried, I always tried, to do my best. I put a bit of me into everything that I created. And that's hard - it took some of out of me. Frankly, I'm pretty exhausted now! Pretty ready for a break. Pretty ready for a pretty busy break...
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)