Getting Back in the Saddle

Yep, as the title says, I'm getting adjusted to things. I've been enjoying some pleasant mornings out in the garden with my mother, and a lot of very active dreams which all seem to have featured something linked with the China trip. I've had dreams about hotel room mix-ups, refusing to pack my luggage, and then one last night where I had some very tiny frogs as pets. I wake up almost every morning with the excitement of these dreams running through my head, and then when I tell my mom about them later they sound so dull. It's so hard to convey the full sparkle of the dreams when I tell them...and I find myself forgetting why a certain event was so, so important that it made my heart race.

I've been reading, playing a little piano, cleaning the house, letting my rabbit out and cutting his knots of fur off, taking walks, trying to wake myself up in the afternoons when I get drowsy, studying Chinese, and I just started my online Environmental Science class a few days ago. So my good summer is continuing. There have been a couple of ups and downs...

Last week, I came home after the Antioch Writers' Workshop and ate lunch. I went through feelings while sitting in the workshop of feeling a little naive/weak/away from things...I was pretty much alone the whole time because the girls in the Young Writers' Workshop who also spent the afternoons together workshopping each other's work never really talked to me; and I suppose, after a little while, I just wasn't very interested in talking to them after hearing what they talked about. It's just sitting in a lecture hall, listening to someone talk about writing and trying to get inspired in a room full of inspired people, so you don't really have to interact with anyone. Anyway, my parents both left soon after I got home, and then I had a bit of a collapse because I realized I just really wasn't up for being alone anymore. I didn't know what  to do! And I was tired, and frustrated. (That was when I plugged my computer in and tripped on the cord, which I found out later cracked the screen...thank goodness I didn't see that it had cracked then or I would have been a mess.) But I only went through a few minutes of that, because then...

I started to think about Friends, and how it can cheer me up. Then my thoughts drifted to one of the characters, Monica, who loves to clean. She cleans for fun, anytime of day. And I, being in a bit of a crazy mood, decided, Well, let's try to be like Monica and clean! And ya know what? It worked. I scrubbed at the kitchen floor, and then the cupboards, and the handles on the cupboards, and the stove and the dishwasher...and it felt so good. I was completely wrapped up in it, and I felt so organized, so in control, like everything was in its place.

I'm very proud of myself for taking Monica's example in that situation. I've discovered a new therapy for myself! (I thought I was crazy - I've barely ever liked cleaning before. Now I've just got to get myself to enjoy the organization type of cleaning...like cleaning my room..ohhhh goodness...)

I've read (counting on fingers...) six novels this summer, I think, a couple of those for the second time. And almost all of them have had to do with war. I reread The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, both in the Hunger Games series, and those are about a future United States where the people are starting a revolution against the demanding government. Then I read A Thousand Splendid Suns, which is set in Afghanistan around the war, Catch-22, and Peace, by Richard Bausch. The last two are my summer reading books, the latter assigned by the school and the former assigned by...moi! Ironically, I finished Catch-22 on Tuesday, thought, I really liked that book and I don't want it to end (I actually read the first page or so over again because I just wasn't ready for it to be over) but I'm really done with all this war. And then. Tada - Peace, a book that follows three men who hike up a freezing mountain in Italy during WWII. More war (the same war as Catch-22, actually). But they were good books.... Now I'm ready for some plain old young adult fiction though, so I've started a book called Delirium, about a (probably future) U.S. where love is considered a disease and people are "cured" of it. Hm...scary thought. (Kind of goes against the entire theme of Harry Potter....speaking of which...)

Have I mentioned that the last Harry Potter movie was ABSOLUTELY OUTSTANDINGLY AMAZING AND INCREDIBLE AND UNSPEAKABLY BRILLIANT!?!?! I was soo satisfied and happy and warm inside when it finished (along with sad because there won't be any more) and I wanted to watch it again RIGHT AWAY! I think I shall watch it again, in fact..in the theater. Oh, it was just sooo gooooddd...... (And so was $5 popcorn.)

So...there's more I could tell...but I've said enough. I'm looking forward to my dreams tonight...and hoping it won't be as hot tomorrow morning, because I'll be doing my first community service hours at a CSA farm owned by the parents of a fellow car-pooler and friend of mine!

Life is good....

An Update

This will be quick, since I'm using my mom's computer (due to reasons you'll find out in a moment) and she wants it back. I'll just say this:

A few days ago, when I plugged my computer in to charge, I set  it on top of a desk. But it wasn't pushed very far back on the desk, and when my foot got caught in the wire of the computer, it was easily pulled down and made the computer fall. The next morning when I opened up my computer to use it at the Antioch Writers' Workshop so I could take notes, I saw a green-ish screen with an internal crack through the middle, along with a ton of white dust on the screen. I'm not sure where the dust came from, but immediately I thought back to the day before when it had fallen, and it felt almost as if the wind had been knocked out of me like it is sometimes when I jump out off of a swing. When I turned it on I was met with a blinking white screen that scared me a considerable amount. The thing I was most worried about was losing all of the writing and the pictures I had saved on it. But just a few minutes ago, it was picked up by a computer mechanic, and I think everything is going to be all right!

I've been looking forward to tonight for this whole (slightly hard) week. Because... Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 is coming out! The last in the whole series...it'll be over now...and I can't believe it! And beforehand, my parents and I are going to China Cottage...finally, I get American Chinese food! After about four days in China, I was already craving sesame tofu. 

I'll post again soon about the Writers' Workshop, which I've been attending the morning of which this past week. And I'll post my journals from China. I just wanted to post an update, since I haven't blogged in so long.

Back, Loving Democracy and Wanting to Eat

I got back two days ago. China seems like a dream now, a dream that brought the dream of my real life into contrast with the stark reality of the world. Almost three weeks of not being sure what I'd eat for the next meal, if I'd be able to use a sanitary toilet, and what the heck I'd be doing sure changes your ideas about time and being comfortable. Walking by dried up old women who carry trash bags full of empty water bottles and seeing people walking the city streets and waiting at bus stops with the saddest neutral expressions on their faces you've ever seen sure changes your perspective. Being fawned over by every other group of Asian people that you see, getting your picture taken, and sometimes even signing your name for a group of eager Chinese school girls, all just because you have light skin, light hair, and blue eyes, sure makes you realize how diverse your own country is. Seeing people constantly working so hard, putting up with heat and smell and uncleanliness, hundreds of school kids wearing the same clothes with their fixed the same way, walking around in groups , blending in with each other, and hearing them talk about how they can't get on Facebook or YouTube because the government doesn't allow it, sure makes you appreciate your own democratic country, where people have a choice about their job and value individuality instead of feeling obligated to be the same as the group. Driving through a forest of skyscrapers, apartment buildings that touch the sky, and standing at the top of the Oriental Pearl Tower to see that the city stretches beyond the skyline, sure makes you realize how small your own cities are. Walking on bricks and stones that are hundreds and hundreds of years old sure lets you know how young your own country is. And seeing women washing their laundry in the river, houses with their windows and doors open to let in a breeze which they depend upon for coolness, a little girl sitting on the street next to an old blind ma who plays a barely audible instrument counting bills, sure makes you believe that the streets in American really are paved with gold.

I don't know much at the moment, other than the fact that I woke up this morning at 4:00 and didn't go back to sleep, and that I've been craving a Chinese breakfast for several hours now. I must be insane. And also somewhat in love with China. So I'd love to write, but all I can really feel right now is the urge to stuff myself with food, familiar food - or food that has become familiar to me in the last few weeks.

One. More. Day.

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!

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.)

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.

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.

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...