Scotland Summary

I'm at Allan's house now and will be for the weekend. We'll catch up on some much needed sleep and maybe take a trip or two out, like to New Lanark or Hadrian's Wall, but for the most part I'm starting to look ahead to Spain. Scotland has been awesome. I was expecting a lot from the country but it has exceeded all expectations. The highlights have probably been Edinburgh (seeing Allan's haunts, the, lovely castle, etc...), climbing Ben Nevis (the U.K.s highest mountain), Loch Ness (the good, the bad, the pathetically touristy), and our brief but spectacular taste of the Hebrides Islands (Allan, Lucia and I had an afternoon on a beach of white sands and turquoise waters, and all to ourselves!) As far as the company goes, I love both Allan and Lucia dearly, and we had a lot of fun, but I'm not sure I thought through the ramifications of my plan to get them to hook up clearly. In fact I'm not sure I even expected it to actually work. It did and I'm happy for both of them but of course there were a few lonely times and a few awkward times but all ameliorated by a bunch of drunken Slovakians on one night and a certain Slovenian on two others.

We didn't complete our walk in the end. We'd planned to go from Ft. William to Inverness across the Great Glen Way, crossing Scotland from sea to sea and not even at its absolute narrowest point! In the end we were a bit cocky. I still think it wasn't so much the raw distance as the fact that we did our trial run in dry weather, on flat ground, and with half the weight. Really smart, and to make matters worse the day before the walk was the day we climbed Britain's highest mountain, and you're not supposed to do anything the day after. While we had unbelievably nice weather for most of the days of the trip, it rained every day we were walking, and after several days of trudging through pouring rain and the like, Allan was in lots of pain, I had caught some sort of sickness from Lucia, and Lucia was both sick and in pain, though possibly to less extremes, so we ended up taking the bus on two days. Still, we completed more than half the walk and learned a lot for next time. We should have been in better shape, we should have built in a rest day (especially considering Ben Nevis), and there were also things outside of our control, like pretty bad weather even for Scotland and illness. Whatever sickness Lucia brought with her from Chile was some nasty stuff - she is only now recovering after a month of sore throat, dripping nose, and cough, whereas I had the same symptoms more severely and acutely (already feeling fine again), and now Allan seems to have caught the same thing.

Is it rainy here? A few days in I would have told you it was all rubbish. We had lovely sunshine on the islands and the weather while climbing Ben Nevis was also fine. Yes it rained when we were in Glasgow but somehow rain bothers me less in urban environments. Then we started walking and it rained the WHOLE TIME - and then we finished and the weather in Inverness was absolutely glorious again. But what's really freaky about the rain here isn't the frequency (it rains far more in Costa Rica, for example), or the intensity (when it does rain in St. Louis in the summer, you better be inside unless you want to be blown into the Mississippi or struck by lightening, it's somewhat less here), but more of the combination between the two and other factors as well. It does rain frequently, I'd say at least once every other day, and unlike in, say, Costa Rica its still quite heavy and unpredictable, and cold or at least a bit bracing.



What I dislike about Scotland:

The wet, because towels and clothes never dry but always seem sort of damp and cold.

The way hot and cold spouts are separated and the hot water gets as hot enough to make tea - sometimes that can be handy yeah but usually you just have to pick between burning your skin off or freezing - it would be so easy to combine the spouts but no, why would anyone ever need warm or even lukewarm water when they could have boiling or icy?

The unpredictability - I mean rain is fine, but if you wear your raincoat it probably won't rain and carry it around all day, and if you don't, it's guaranteed to rain regardless of the forecast and regardless of how blue and clear the sky seems when you go out.

That there are random areas that according to Allan are rough, and I believe him of course for like Glasgow which has a reputation, but I mean he'll even say it of these little towns which look so sleepy and sweet. Makes me a bit sad. :( Why do these places have to be so gritty and real when they look so much like a fairy tale?



What I like about Scotland:

The wet, because it feels lovely and is good for my skin.

The food, the food, the food. I love the meat pies with their delicious flaky tender pastry and mix of vegetables and meat and spices inside. :D :D :D The candy is tasty, like Crunchie with its honeycomb centre, and the Galaxy and Cadbury chocolate. And there are berries by the side of the road, like in Finland and Norway, and very nearly as tasty. They have Magnum Ice Cream which is always a bonus. Blood Pudding really isn't bad after all, Potato Scones are quite nice, the availability of Indian food is always pleasant even when it doesn't seem to fit, and here's the big one -

Haggis: it's awesome.

The evil pine tree forests (in spite of everything), and the native deciduous forests with their dappled sunlight.

The moss and the lichen and the rocks (never get old somehow).

The Gaelic. It's more real than I expected, (but, to be fair, I was being pessimistic.) I've heard several people speak it and up north the signs are written in Gaelic first, English second.

Scots, too, and the myriad of different accents, are also somehow more real than I expected. Part of this I think is just the normal growing up in America you think everything else is hopelessly quaint and exotic, grow up and get disillusioned and then get surprised again to discover some things are real.

The Islands - they're as lovely as anything Caribbean or Mediterranean, different of course. I expected the desolation and the wildness and they are as advertised, but the deep blue of the waters and white sands caught me by surprise.

The Mountains. If you know me at all this comes as absolutely no surprise, but many of the are bigger than expected and all of them lovely. I expected them to be more like the Appalachians in a sense with more tree cover but I love them the way they are, more naked and windswept and almost like the Faroes. There are so many waterfalls snaking down everywhere like liquid silver and there are even some valleys by the sea that could rival the average Norwegian fjord.

The way the power outlets have little individual on-off switches.

Inverness. Perhaps the lovely weather made me a bit bias, but I thought the city was so nice with the river running through and the funny bridge and all the churches and the castle. :)

Loch Ness - its super touristy but even that's a bit fun once in a while, all the Nessie madness is so ridiculous it becomes fun again. And Urquhart Castle is lovely, and I had fun taking a swim in the Loch itself.

Ben Nevis - what a great mountain, what a lovely day spent climbing it. It's a bit of a challenge but really beautiful at every stage. Breathtaking in both senses of the word. :P

Edinburgh - So much culture for such a small city, plus its just so lovely and historic, even taking out, say, the brilliant castle and Arthur's Seat, the little mountain. Most of the city is actually a World Heritage Site. If I could afford to study abroad in an English speaking country, it would be in Edinburgh for sure.

The castles. I know it's super duper stereotypical but they're everywhere and it's just so cool. Allan actually has one like a fifteen minute walk from his house, a little one and not very old but still beautiful and ruined, all trees and vines twisting around the stonework and birds living in the upper stories. ^^

The Camping Trip from Hell. :D

Got back from camping yesterday and when I woke up this morning it was hard to believe everything we'd been through. I mean, except of course for the lingering feeling of being wet and cold, the barely conscious urge to seek high ground at all times, the slight smell of forest and slighter smell of mildew throughout my room, and, of course, the giant tent filling the entirety of my bathroom. I squeezed around that this morning to brush my teeth and wash my face. I have a pimple in the middle of my forehead for the first time in years. I also have a toothache and a headache. Nice. I spent most of the day yesterday getting each of the four tents to safe and dry place so that they wouldn't mold, and I'll likely put in another 1-2 hours this week getting them folded up, sorted, and returned, but such is life. It was the weekend from hell, as predicted, but it was also awesome. Not only because the company started out good and got better (you can't help but bond through such experiences), but because it was beautiful.

We survived and that felt good, but it made me feel more vulnerable rather than more capable. I was forced to understand nature and my own limits. What if the tornado had hit our campground? What if we didn't have cars? What if we hadn't found the coin laundry? What if we weren't going home after only two days of the pain and cold? And how pathetic - we weren't even in the middle of nowhere in anything hellish - just a fierce two day thunderstorm, in a nice state park that even offered hot showers (which we never used because frankly we were wet enough).

I understood something of homelessness when I slept in the laundry room in a shelf above the dryers, feeling exposed and alone and even though it was hard and cold and uncomfortable still feeling bad for being there at all, that I didn't deserve even that... and in the morning after sleeping on and off I woke up to voices and my first thought was "shit, must be park rangers and here come the questions and, since I /am/ more legitimate than a real homeless person, an apologetic removal rather than one by force..." and I squirmed in my sleeping bag and waited but it turns out that time it was just some hick emptying his trailer toilet into the sewer. Relief. Zahra and I slept another fitful hour and then packed up before the real authorities might take offense.

Everything flooded the first night. We were all cozy and happy at first, eating chicken in the big tent by candlelight and then listening to the thunderstorm and feeling very safe and warm and dry inside. Then Lingxiao came in and said she was a bit wet, and Palak seconded. So Palak squeezed in a bit tighter and Lingxiao came over by me. After a little while Palak said her side was becoming unbearable and so was mine. So we sent Palak and Lingxiao into the cars to sleep, and brought in towels and whatever else we could find to try to keep the middle of the tent reasonable for Megan, Zahra, and I. We kicked out Zahra early on because the water kept coming, but she took the last available spot in a car, so Megan and I tried to last the night. Our tiny dry spot got smaller and smaller and we moved closer and closer to one another, catching only the tiniest moments of sleep now and then. Everything was damp, even wet, but we kept shrinking away from the puddles of genuine standing water until even that reached us. When three inches of water reached my face, I told Megan that we would have to figure something out. She elected to sleep in the front seat of one of the cars, and I gathered up my sleeping bag and went for a hike. It was barely even raining by now although the ground was soaking wet. I went up to the bathhouse and found a coin laundry, used all the coins on me to dry the sleeping bag, running laps around the campground while I waited, and then took the sleeping bag up to a little shelf, about a foot wide, perched above the dryer, and there I slept at last for an hour until the birds started singing at dawn.

We went climbing at Elephant Rocks and Johnson Shut In's, weather be damned or close enough. We hiked through the rain and when it stopped we climbed on the rocks, timidly at first and then a bit more ambitiously. We had to be careful, careful because things were slippery when wet and we held onto each others hands firmly and helped each other go higher and higher. At Johnson Shut Ins it was mostly me who went out, the others hadn't been there before and didn't trust it as much as I did. I had almost reached the other side when the rain picked up, turned into one of those torrential moments that can't last. I was in the middle of the river with the waterfalls and rapids on all sides and suddenly it turned as dark as after sunset and the water became dark grey and troubled. Everyone called me to come back. I did so, but calmly, thinking to myself how many times I've done the same thing in summer when the rocks were just as wet from splashing children and I didn't even have shoes on. God was it beautiful in the middle in the rain.


A dry moment at Elephant Rocks...

... and a wet one at Johnson's Shut Ins.


As soon as I reached the side my friends were on, the rain stopped and in seconds there was a dramatic reversal. The sun came out and the sky was blue - it was the best weather we'd had the entire weekend. I took off my jacket - I was still soaked underneath, but lighter weight, and Ju, Prite and I went out again. Prite was wearing flip flops and started walking through the shallower parts of the water rather than leaping from rock to rock and Ju and I did. Soon he was soaked and gave up on staying dry at all. He started jumping out of crevices and splashing us, so finally I put down my bag and jumped in after him.

We attempted to go up to Taum Sauk and Mina Sauk. We did stop for a while at the highest point in Missouri and took pictures at the overlook with the last of the short sunshine. As we reached the Mina Sauk fall trail, we realized that it was longer than anticipated and also very muddy and nasty, so we decided to head back to camp. It was a good thing, because no sooner had we gotten into the cars then it started raining again - harder than ever. It was such rain that it still impaired visibility when our wipers were at full speed, and here we were trying to make our way down the mountain. The roads weren't exactly in bad repair, or exceptionally steep, but they were definitely going downhill and were very curvy and windy and gravelly and muddy. I kept reminding myself of how it had been driving through the Smoky Mountains in a rainstorm at 60 mph and I knew I could manage. Just as I was thinking about where I would pull over if it got even the tiniest bit worse, the rain stopped again and the sun came back out. We had beautiful sun all the way back home and the drive was amazing.

That night wasn't nearly as bad as the first had been. After a miniature campfire in the pavilion so that Zahra could at last have the halal s'mores she'd been dreaming of and a game of Bullshit under the yellow lights of the bathroom building, we slept relatively well. We set up a new tent that seemed a bit more solid than the first, plus put it on higher ground, plus the rain wasn't as intense. Still, we were a bit scared after the first night, so Megan and Palak elected to sleep in the cars from the beginning, Prite and Matt took one of the 'safe' tents, Ju and Lingxiao took the other, and Zahra and I decided to sleep up in the laundry area again. It's amazing what can seem like luxury after a disaster.


Only picture of the whole group: Zahra, Megan, Lingxiao, Prite, Matt, Ju, Palak, and me.

Would I do it again? Abso-freaking-lutely. But not tonight please. :)

Error: Incompatibility

These are some of my favourite trees on campus (they have a lot of competition, too!). They've got very slender, very strong, twisted branches and they're wonderful to sit in.


This time of year in particular, the branches are covered densely in new green leaves and white blossoms, and hang like curtains. It's beautiful.


Some girls were sitting in one of them as I walked home from class yesterday. People don't do that enough, so normally I would be glad, but as it was I was jealous! I wish I could enjoy the fine weather and beautiful flowers. But we just don't get along.



These are such a nice orange! I can almost taste them when the sun shines through like this...


And these are all butter-yellow and are always swarming with bees and butterflies. ^^


Allergies are the cruelest joke. I'm strong, survive the cold winter, love it even - the greys, the whites, the way it makes brown seem warm and lovely and completely disarm me, leave me unprepared for the incredible beauty of the first green buds of spring... and then allergies arrive. They almost make me want to be dark, depressed, angry again so that I can close my heart to the beauty of spring and call it a choice. As it is, I just feel so excluded, so alien to this environment of sunshine, laughter, and organic healthiness.


Squirrels are rushing about with new energy... birds swoop recklessly in front of pedestrians, the sun glints off their feathers but they move too fast for you to even note their colour half the time...


Amidst all of this, I feel... incompatible with life.

Golden Dust

Pictures from my last walk in the hills, with Zahra and Nash:



"What's making you sick, Miranda?" asked my Catalan professor the other day. "Is it this golden dust?"

It's worse this year than normal, and I... can't stand being compromised like this...

Fifty Hours of Springtime

It's spring. The trees around Jesse and Memorial are breaking into tiny red flowers, and the Magnolia buds are swollen and fuzzy-soft. Some days it rains and the wind blows sideways and it's cold. Other days it's sunny and warmish and delightfully breezy.

Nash and I hike up the cliffs by the quarry at dusk, drinking mango juice from Taj Emporium. We walk here and there through the night, hit Noodles and then Starbucks, each right at closing. Then it's two a.m...

The next morning I can sleep in, so I finally slink over to Anthro-Religion right at 12:30, soaking wet and not looking forward to standing outside in it for an hour, but when I do, after class, it's not so bad - the giant apple costume is surprisingly well insulated, especially over my coat, and we sing and dance to get more money and stay warm. The peapod makes up a song and it isn't very good.

I go home for a minute, write up something quick about our field trips to the Missourian newsroom and the KOMU broadcast studio. Then I run over to News class and turn that in and we have to do some spot deadline writing for a fake news conference and then have a few minutes to plan our convergence project. My group is going to do sexting.

I run over to Mark Twain. News class went full time, unusually, so I'm a bit late to eat dinner with Zahra, (British) Laura, Yuki, and Palak. I have to leave, early, too, because I'm covering an easter egg hunt for News. I run back to South to drop off my schoolbooks and grab my keys, and end up helping Tina and Pelumi troubleshoot for their art event. I stay for and photograph the first few minutes of it, then I run out to the parking lot and head for Stephen's Lake.

I drive into the park and reach a parking lot at a dead end. I see the group assembled for the hunt - a quarter mile up the hill and across a bit of a drainage marsh. I'm just barely on time, so I cut my losses and park, working my way across the puddles and then up the hill. I realize after a moment that I'm walking through the hunting fields - brightly coloured eggs are scattered here and there. I suddenly worry that someone's going to accuse me of stealing the candy or something. They don't. Then I think a little bit longer about how random it is that I'm walking into the event from across the park, and it's all little kids and I'm showing no identification as a Journalism student or anything else and I feel grateful that I'm a woman so no one's likely to accuse me of pedophilia (coincidentally this immunity reminds me of a conversation I had with Liisa one time. :P) Its a flashlight egg hunt so by God everyone's brought a flash light and when the first wave is set out at 7:30 it's not dark enough that the lights can really be seen much less useful, but still all the mommy's and daddy's show their toddlers how the flashlights work and ask them not to shine them in the other kids' eyes...

Back at South, Tina's event is still going on so I sit and draw with Tina and Amanda and Tina's professor friend. There's hummus leftover and Tina wants to eat it with me and I say we really need some sort of bread so we discuss the possibility of making a pita run and then Tina gets this funny look in her eyes and says, "Let's go to a park and eat hummus and pita." And then she says, "Do you want to invite Sam Kennedy?" And Sam's a friend of Tina's friend and we've eaten lunch with him a few times and I say, "Yeah, yeah I do." So we call Sam up on the phone and tell him to dress warmly and high-tail it over to South and when he gets to Tina's room we blindfold him and lead him out to the car and throw him in the backseat with all the sleds and stuff. We drive to Hyvee and buy Pita and some chocolate and then further to Rock Bridge, specifically a trail that's supposed to be closed after dark but rather notably isn't, the gate is wide open so we drive in and sit at a picnic table at eat hummus and pita, like we planned. We can see a lot of stars from there and also the moon and we take a little walk because Tina apparently for all of her nature worship has never been to Rockbridge. And Sam and I argue about which direction to go and I tell Sam he's an idiot because the path goes around in a circle and we play by a waterfall under the moonlight and and there are bats everywhere down by the cave and when we start walking back to the car Sam says something silly about Sign-Bears and I say something silly about Totemism and Tina is ashamed of both of us.

We go home to South and Tina has to study so Sam and I play Super Smash Brothers for a couple hours. And then I sleep...

Spanish class, then more Local Food and Local People and in the morning it's cold wet and windy and I shiver in the Apple again and then two other volunteers start a little band, they're reasonably talented and as the sun starts coming out they don the peapod and the apple and a guitar and sing...

"Hello, my name is Peabody and I was grown here locally..."

The song is surprisingly good but I've already forgotten most of it, all I can say is that Tina has some creative and talented friends...

I have to leave for Catalan, but afterward I find myself drawn back to take pictures of the little red flowers in front of the Memorial tower, and before I know it I'm sitting in the sun with Tina and she is the Spinach fairy and I am a farmer and we are talking to Satoshi and one of his friends about Mt. Misen, the aquarium on Miyajima, and what Tina is on to be so passionate about Local Food and Local People.

Then I walk with Palak, a rather long way, send a package to distant Liisa which she'll recieve when she returns from Nepal. And Palak and I talk about life and love and the way emotions flicker, bend, and yet endure across cyberspace; she has her sad stories and I can be there for her in a way that's unusual, so I am, and Palak climbs into Flatbranch cave against her better judgement, thanks to my evil influence.

I meet Nash for dinner at Dobbs, he's heading back to St. Louis and I have to do Health and Safety Checks at South. Kevin and I and then Pelumi, too, we take the third floor and get done in relatively decent time but of course there are a few problem rooms and somehow I end up helping Miguel get those sorted out, including climbing up a bunkbed to remove a pair of flannel pants that someone had artfully pinned up around their smoke detector, not suspicious at all... ;)

By then I'm a bit late, I'd agreed to meet Satoshi and his friend Yasu and our friends Sara and Jenny. I'm tired and don't feel like going out, but they moved the whole event from a bar to Shakespeare's for me, because I'm underage, so I felt an obligation and anyway tomorrow is break so I can sleep then or when I'm dead, whichever.

By the time I drive over to Shakespeare's I'm feeling a lot better, it's weird huh? Almost like I'm turning into an extrovert or something. Sara and Jenny couldn't come but I feel surprisingly chill about being there with Satoshi and a bunch of essentially strangers. Our main group is Satoshi, Yasu, and an American named Matt. Some other Americans come in for a while and then leave. All the Americans seem to be from Chesterfield, close to my hometown, which is amusing. A Thai guy also comes, this guy I know - his name is Dong and he calls me Mirandong and I'm not 100% why. After a moment everyone (Satoshi, Yasu, Matt, and Dong) decide to go out and play pool, and I figure what the hell, my flights not until noon... so I come along too.

I haven't played pool for maybe 8 years and I'm not very good to say the least, but only Yasu's really decent so it's all relative I guess. Matt and I are on a team and at some point between games Satoshi sort of corners me and asks if I have a boyfriend. He says it too casually for it to be about himself, plus he's quite a bit older than me, so I'm wondering what's going on and waiting patiently for that to unfold itself. And afterwards Satoshi and Matt are having a bit of a conversation and the tone makes me even more suspicious, but again I decide to wait and see...

When the Billiards hall closes, the Asians head off to a bar and Matt and I decide to go home. My cars still over by Shakespeare's, and it's late, so Matt walks me over there and we talk. And right as we get to the car his voice changes and he asks me if I'd like to get together sometime and get to know each other. I say, sure, add me on Facebook, we'll talk after break... and I get in the car and drive home and pack my bags and go to sleep.

Suddenly Spring

Spring happens so fast. It catches me by surprise every year.

The grass is suddenly green. Yesterday, it was that yellow colour, which looks dead and disturbing after October's first frosts, but by the end of February seems to me golden, lovely, something like straw, a bit of warmth in a world of cool greys. And suddenly it's green, in some places more than others, and you find yourself blinking at a patch several times, wondering why it's drawing your attention, what's different about it, until you remember the apple flashing from grey to red in The Giver and remember. Colour. Spring. Life.

The ground is so soft. Mud reappears where there was ice all winter. Last week old, dry and freezer-burnt mulch crunched under foot, now they are spreading new mulch, mahogany coloured or as dark as soy sauce, with a rich strong smell that makes me want to put my hands through it, dig and breathe in the energy of the plant life.

In the shade of one of the parking garages, the one by the hospital that I pass on the way to most of my classes, there has been a snow pile all winter. It was taller than I was and lingered from one snowfall to the next, protected by the deep shadows in that corner. It was there as of this afternoon - now approximately one foot tall, with a big wet ring of earth around it, marking it's previous diameter. I think it's the last snow left on campus, and with it goes this winter.

Time goes by so quickly...


I miss Winter, but I'm still glad it's Spring. ^^

Rose Bush

It's cold suddenly, as it shouldn't be in Missouri until October at the earliest.

And one day it drizzled, also a rare event. We felt as though we were walking through misters at an amusement park. One boy said he wished it would just rain, it would be better. I had to disagree. My socks were dry. :) Still, even our rains are more of a summer phenomenon. It was strange for it to be so cool so early and so wet so late.

On that drizzly day, I had to go to the student health center between classes. I debated running back for my jacket, then decided to push through. I took a funny turn, one I wouldn't have taken unless I had taken the middle road further than average, debating whether or not to head back to South.

And in an artificial canyon sheltered from the wind by two buildings, I came across a rosebush. The bright red flowers and deep green leaves were covered in silver droplets.

I had time, I stopped and stared. Two minutes went by. Then the wind came through a gap between the buildings and rustled the branches of my rosebush - the droplets lifted in a silver mist and washed over me.

Jantulógin

Yesterday I passed a patch of purple tulips, with shorter orange ones growing underneath. They were lovely. There was just one tulip in the sea of purple and undergrowth of orange that didn't quite match - it was a white/purple hybrid, lovely, the two colours swirling together in a vivid contrast to the deep purples that surrounded it. It amused me, so I took pictures of it - I guess going for one of those 'be unique' inspirational posters or something. :)

Today I passed the same patch. All the top flowers were purple. From having spent a minute or two photographing them the day before, I knew exactly where the off-colour one had been. Today there were green leaves there at the base, holding up a slender, tall, green stalk which ended in a perfect, round, horribly wet stump.

Janteloven in action?

I suppose I understand that there must be some way of controlling the colours of flower arrangements, and that it's no worse, really, than picking a weed or putting together a bouquet. I realize all of this, and yet, like a bad omen, the weeping stalk, still standing, bothers me.

It Had Flowers...

As of right now there is no longer a tree outside my window. I woke up to the sound of chainsaws and looked outside and thought for a moment that they were only trimming some of the branches, and then they bit into the main trunk, and now the tree is gone.

It bothers me. The tree wasn't the healthiest on campus, it had a branch or two that were maybe dead, but it had green leaves all over it, and even a few flowers, and it was my tree, right outside my window...

I don't know what they'll do with the spot now, but surely even a struggling tree with a nice wood shape would have been better than an empty circle of mulch?


It had flowers...

Ich Will Etwas Sagen -

Du bist mein Lebenskompass. Ich orientiere mich an dir unabsichtlich, und das ist in Ordnung. Bisherig gehe ich gute Wege. Auch gab ich den Versuch auf, dein Angesicht von fallendem Schnee, der Sonne, und klarem Wasser zu löschen- oder deine Stimme von dem Wind in den Föhren oder dem Dröhnen des Flugzeugs zu trennen. Aber es gab diesen Traum, diesen Trost - ich stöße ab, und es war gut.

Why I'm Partial to Bad Weather

Today the weather is beautiful. The sun is shining and the grass is green, and it's nice and perfect cool - the spring still working on it's comeback from the aftershock of winter that hit last week and even brought a bit of snow to the pear blossoms and daffodils.

And when the weather's nice, I just can't rest. There's an itching inside of me screaming, "Don't delay! Go out as soon as you possibly can! Walk, run, climb, wade... enjoy!"

And that's just the problem. Quite often, I can't. Or the rest of me doesn't want to. And then I can't make all of me happy with the new plan, because the itch won't go away.

Today my friends are all out of town and I'm a bit sick and feel somewhat miserable, and I'd love to study some Japanese and I need to clean my room and do a lot of schoolwork. But this itch wants me out and about. It's ridiculous. Alone? Leaving all responsibilities behind? Sneezing the whole time?

If it was raining and dreary out, like it was last week when I felt fine, I'd relax completely, knowing it was a Saturday - I could rest and not waste a thing. Take a nap. Read. Do laundry. But instead I want out and don't want out. I'm miserable.

Juxtaposition

I'm sitting in some amazing trees outside of Laws, working on my computer. The juxtaposition between the modern technology and this little patch of nature is quite lovely. There are obviously drawbacks to using the computer outside, like the fact that it's nearly impossible to use in bright sunlight. It makes me very aware of how badly my screen needs to be cleaned. If I want to see what I'm typing I have to use my own shadow to make a portion of it readable. But it's worth it, because the rest of the screen is filled with a picture perfect reflection of the trees above, with all their new year green leaves and even a few birds flitting around.

These trees have amazing twisty branches that form a roof over your head, and little perches where one can sit and even balance a laptop. Not exactly relaxing but it's lovely, because you almost can't see the street full of cars that's in front of you, or the concrete monstrosity that is Laws rising up to your right. You know they are there, though... the deep base boom of a passing car interrupts the birdsong, all possible natural smells are blotted out as cigarette smoke wafts in from the left, laundry smells from the right, the smell of the street from up ahead, and, most distracting, the smell of food frying at Dobbs. But that almost makes it nicer, almost makes you appreciate your tiny patch of nature more - the little spider that climbs the trunk of the tree not a foot from your face, stops and blends in perfectly... the birds that fly down and under the canopy of the trees and then back up into them, disappearing in a rustle of green.

It's a small and perfect world. I sit quietly, try not to move more than my fingers and my eyes. I wonder how many things I can see, how many pictures I can take, from just this one spot, moving only eyes and, I'll allow, my neck... spiders, birds, squirrels... even ignoring the endless variety of the people who pass by.

The Weather of a Week in Missouri

Last weekend the weather was lovely and I watched the wind play in the little artificial puddles over the volleyball pit, setting ripples in the water, which the sun shone through and made me think of summer days and little wooden and paper sailboats...

Monday and Tuesday we were plunged back fully into the winter, far below zero, and forgetting to check the temperature Monday I headed out into the world with only a warm coat, and no gloves or scarf or hat. And I thought I was going to lose my ears...

Wednesday I wore gloves, but determined to catch an hour of solitude, I spent a while leaning against a tree, bundled up, sketching German houses and paella on my Molskine vocabulary notebooks...

By Thursday I was carrying the coat over my shoulder, with my sleeves pushed up past my elbows. That evening was a scavenger hunt, and the air held that pregnant, expectant feeling of an Indian summer...

Friday we went wading in a spring, with ice still on the water... but it felt like summer as we laughed and lay back in the grass which clung to our clothes, brittle and yellow as it is this time of year...

Today Tabi and I went downstairs, where people were enjoying the warm evening like Scandinavians in summer time, and outdoor seating and ice cream places had been reopened for just a few days, to catch this mini-season...

The Subtle Beauty of Missouri

Ah, this Missouri, this land of the big blue sky - I needn’t lose it, needn’t forget it, it is being tattooed onto my identity with every moment. The sky is indeed big here and you wonder how it feels, you don’t want reality, you want to touch the fabric where the blue is kept, you wonder if it is rough-smooth like canvas painted this amazing impossible colour or light as silk or soft like cream. Ah, blue sky and below, the winter grass, the warm colour of straw – it is for me the colour of the number seven, and I love seven, and somehow it has a perfect sort of symmetry for me that three, the number of God, is green like fresh summer grass, and in the winter seven, the magic number, takes over. Nestled in this gold are rocks, here and there, grey as the Baltic sea or as those eyes we can’t forget… and rising above to link roots and sky are the trees, some with their dark and naked branches glimmering and highlighted by sunbeams, whose depth seems impossible, profound, that, moving the view changes with every second revealing such complexity, and others covered in their piney evergreen… My Missouri, ah, I love your subtle beauties.

Queenie

Stephanie and I went to Queenie the other day. It was a lovely time - we took the Horse Trail through the woods so we kind of saw the park from a different perspective. My three favourite things were the random bleachers, 'miniature forest', the tadpoles in the hoofprints, and the mysterious ivy tower.

The Random Bleachers

The Miniature Forest

The Ivy Tower

La Villa Adriana

La Villa Adriana

This poem is unfinished... anything highlighted in red I am rather unhappy with, anything written in blue, Stephanie is not content with. I'll post a better version when I have one.

Walking one spring afternoon,

I lost my voice

Beside the marble of the villa,

Everwhite, still gleaming

In the waning sun.

And I fell away from those beside me,

Who tired of the days walk,

Whispered that the ruins,

Were looking very much the same.

But I was still enchanted.

I sat beside a garden pool,

Where swans even now, shivering,

Dip their heads into the deep green,

Seeking something no stranger sees.

My mind drifted as easily as the wind,

That rustled the new and sunlit grass,

Smiling at those who passed on the road.

I fingered the mosaics, patterned stones,

And the spaces between them,

Where moss and ferns are taking root.

I wondered about those who laid the stones,

For the temple of Serapis, spreading them

Before the feet of the Karyatides,

Where philosophers once gathered and spoke,

And could not help but sound profound.

It was more than possible one had sat,

Where I sat then and wondered,

In much the same way,

About the meaning of our lives,

The absurdity of our existence,

To set a ripple in the water,

That moves and grows in a startling moment,

And vanishes forever.

Morphic Resonance

“I try to be open-minded.” She told me. “After all, you can’t see with closed eyes, how can you learn with a closed mind?” Mrs. Burroughs, I thought, You’re so open-minded you’re brains are practically falling out. I let her continue.

“Have you ever heard of Morphic Resonance?” I shook my head. “You might want to use it in your writing sometime. Morphic Resonance.” She repeated it, louder and more definitively. “It’s kind of a collective conscious thing… like if you teach a group of chickens something, it will be easier for another group of chickens to learn it, across the world.”

“You know me. Normally I wouldn’t think about something like that, I’d think it was silly. But I saw the things they were doing in Christ Church. Made you think.” No time for me to respond. She rushed on. “And there was another woman I met, on the meadow behind it. She used to teach economics, you know. Before they were all about how to get rich, when they were about cultures, and people. She quit when they changed like that, and has been looking at trees ever since. She knows all about them; the stages of their life, their shapes, their colours. She tells me they each have a different personality. We look at a tree and see the leaves, she sees the branches underneath.”

“I wouldn’t tell just anyone this, Miranda. I know you would appreciate it. She really sees the world a different way.”

“You see the world a different way,” I insisted lightly. She smiled at that.

“We all do.”

Purple Journal 1

(These are in no particular order, but usually the stuff within a journal is from the relatively same time period.)

Chran lisa tasare ilnava ren.
Tambave galesan amarei olnava ren.
Ave Kyrie.

Are Stamuna til nellavore
Sanareve fanan.

(I don't ask. Neither should you)

Meiou, Meu, Elan

(There are sometimes random names scattered throughout)

Aleu, Amara, Ashe, Arien, Aya, Aerill

The rain is alive - it moves and it breathes, it strengthens and weakens. You can see it in the lake moving in wonderous waves as if in racing.
A girl about Melissa's age, running with her own personal beaver stick, her shirt is either tie-dyed or soaked - I can't tell which. Her jeans, light and splattered by the rain. Leaning on her stick, she stares at the sea and sky for the wonder it is due.
Half of me want's to run and dance in the rain like Christy, feet in the mud and arms outstretched. But the other half of me is perfectly content to sit here in the fragile shelter and watch it from afar.
A rainstorm is something you can never hope to capture. But writing, and music together may help me to remember it. There are some things in life that there are no subsitutes for. Cao standing beside me, pants rolled up sloppily, one higher than the other; and to no effect, both were thouroughly soaked.
The sopping pink shirt says "Flavor of the Week", and as I stare into her rain soaked, exhilerated face, the name fits so well.
The music changes - violins. The rain begins to slow but...
Christy comes up and informs me with that straight face that makes everything she says that much funnier;
"Ok, my shorts are dry, but my shirts soaking wet." Turning to me as if I am expected to come up with a divine explanation.
There's this artist wandering around with a charcoal sketchpad. I tried to make small talk, but I don't think she gets it. We are both trying to capture the rainstorm.

There have been moments of bright inspiration, but something here is missing. It's not quite the same. The leaves have fallen from our Gryph-Bush.

Christy's sleeping bag is very creative - a cracker jacks bag with the classic "Suprise Toy Inside."

"Ellie! I'm trying to sleep! Don't hit me with pillows!"
"I Didn't."
"Then who did?"
"No one. It wasn't a pillow."

I was on the long bus. And I think it was my fault. Because I was sitting there all content, about an hour into it, and I was happy because I had my friends there and was listening to music and I thought to myself that if the bus ride went on forever, I would be happy.
And then it did. And I wasn't happy. I think sometimes we all feel like we want to stay somewhere, hold a moment in your heart forever. But you can't.

(That is a short excerpt from one of my Talking Stick speeches. I rather forgot the rest, but it was about how our experiance at the Blue Mountain Camp can't last forever, but our journey with god can, and should.)

(Here this journal ends... but I think it ties in very closely with another one, because I'm pretty sure I have notes from the same trip there.)

Cool Tree

And this is the same tree with the color temperature set cooler.

Warm Tree

This is the same tree with the color temperature set warmer.