Neither PC nor surgery related - be happy, people

This is Marie.

Marie is the daughter of a very dear friend of mine (my brother-in-law’s sister). She calls me “Aunt” Sara, and I call her my niece-in-law. She is 3 years old, and as of two weeks ago - a big sister.

Yesterday, I spent a few hours with Marie, her Uncle Ben, and her Grammy. We get along really well - favorite games include “throw 12 bouncy balls on the kitchen floor at once”, and “hide from the sharks under blankets”. Good times. She also loves me because I let her use my camera, which is actually really awesome because I love seeing what she chooses to shoot.

So yesterday, Marie & I decided to give Uncle Ben & Grammy some visit time alone; we grabbed the bouncy balls and headed off to explore the (shark-infested) bedroom. Sometime while we were running from sharks… Marie bumped her head. For those of you who haven’t witnessed such things recently, let me explain what happens when a 3 year old bumps her head: it takes a little time, maybe 5 seconds, before she realizes something’s wrong, processes the shock and pain, and then decides it’s worth crying over. When that happened, Marie ran for me and hung on for all she was worth - but it only took her a few hiccups to see I wasn’t the right person to fix this. She needed Grammy.

Marie needed the only person she trusted more than her mommy and daddy to hug her tight and just love her until the tears stopped. She didn’t need Grammy to tell her it didn’t really hurt or to stop crying. She just needed time & proof of love, so she held onto her Grammy with all she had. In a few minutes, she stopped crying, and looked over at me. “Hey, Aunt Sara!”, she said (in that unmistakable “Guess what? tone). “I’m all better now!”. That cracked us all up. It was totally true, and we “grown-ups” couldn’t have put it better ourselves. “Well what happened, Marie?!” I asked - mainly just to see what she came up with. “I don’t know,” she said. There were still leftover tears in her eyes, but she’d already forgotten about them. “I just had to cry for a while. Let’s go play now.”

I have Marie days. Sometimes I bump my head, and the shock and pain send me reeling. I’ve got over two decades on Marie, but she still manages to deal with the bumps a lot better than I do. Why do we grown-ups try to make life so damn complicated? We take a whole lot longer than a scant 5 seconds to figure ourselves out. What the hell gives us the audacity to believe that age or experience grant us magical understanding of whatever life throws at us, and why does that same manufactured “maturity” stop us from humbling ourselves into the only posture of the only relationship that will really fix things? The weirdness of that concept would probably crack Marie up (except I can’t say hell or damn in front of her, and I don’t think she knows what audacity means).

So tonight, I’m trying to deal with some things like my favorite three year old would. There aren’t many who I trust; only One who I trust completely. I’m not all better yet… but I think I will be soon.

People are nice

I had text messages at 7am Friday — before I was even awake to shower before the surgery. Since then, I’ve had lots of people send warm fuzzies, happy thoughts, and healing prayers on my behalf. So… thanks, people. I appreciate it a lot.

In return, I offer this really sweet picture. Not Safe For Lunch; there’s even some blood in it — but I find it incredibly awesome, because even though I Hate Hospitals©, I find the magic of medical science very cool. When I joked around telling people “they cut my thumb off and pinned it back on” — I wasn’t exaggerating THAT much!
(I’ll be nice and not inline the image; click to view.)
The stylish turquoise bead is screwed onto the end of a pin which extends about 3″ through the joint. The nurse who changed my cast just looked at me weird when I asked if they came in other colors. Oh well.

Happy Christmas

May you and yours avoid rampant consumerism and resultant traffic jams as much as possible.

In the spirit of the season (and oh dear, I think this might sent me to either social or metaphysical limbo; possibly both):
w00t to teh Ceiling Cat! An peace fer doodz he luffs! Kthxbai.

Full disclosure: I’ve waited a good three months to post that.

Ambushed

This week caught me off guard. I thought about just posting a series of punctuation marks:
0_0 … !!! … :’-(

Wednesday night I had a message on my phone. I’d been expecting an interview in three weeks, but the message was “I’ll be out of town for a few weeks, how about tomorrow?” — so I ended up driving to Atlanta at some ungodly hour Thursday morning. The interview went really well; apparently I’m a “perfect candidate”. Humorous moment came when he asked what I missed most from China, and I said “my cat”. It’s not that I didn’t miss my family, or fajitas, or air conditioning — I just missed my cat a lot.

Friday I drove yet again towards Atlanta; I’d had a trip planned in TN for the following week. Sometime while I was stalled in traffic I got another phone call from the same guy. “Usually we give you a couple weeks after the interview, but there’s this job…” I end up with an actual nomination less than 24 hours after an interview I didn’t expect until November. “And I know you asked for Asia, but…” In a completely unexpected location. “Oh, and are you really set on a June departure, or…?” Hm. At any rate, now I can officially put it in print:
I got a job with the Peace Corps.
In Africa.
Departing February.
My recruiter said to tell my cat ‘hello’ for him.

Friday-Wednesday I spent lost in the woods, somewhere in Appalachia. Some hiking, a lot of trail work. Good trip. Lots of trail built. “Camped” in an abandoned schoolhouse (former student body of 45; glorified homeschool was more like it). Making a phone call involved driving two hours up a particular ridge, standing on a truck, and facing Southeast. We were so isolated that the sun didn’t begin to show up until 7:30 or so every morning. Absolutely beautiful weather and view every day we were out.

I got back Wednesday night. My cat died while I was gone.

I thought about deleting that novel of a paragraph, but changed my mind (and exactly how long can I make this title, anyway?)

I’ve been mopey lately, and I’ve finally decided it’s due to a general feeling of unfulfillment. Tonight I went shopping. (Don’t worry, there’s a connecting thread*.) I don’t go shopping very often, and as a general rule try to avoid the experience all together. But for the past few weeks I’ve been desperately missing my Nalgene, which I accidentally abandoned in my favorite fried-rice hole-in-the-wall sometime in June; yes, that is indeed an item one can “desperately miss”. So tonight I finally bought one, and on the way home started thinking.

Four (holy crap, four?!) months ago, I was wrapping up one season and setting out on another - and was dragging through the same blahs. I was tired of work and class being my only outward evidence of worth, and was finding precious little comfort in the pair. It’s a new season, a new semester, a new month - and the routine of life has dumped me in the same place again. School, Work, Family, Life, all proper nouns which have little significance when I remove myself from their influence, yet which I all too easily allow to become my defining factors. I feel temporary. Regardless of where I live, I live out of a trunk, and allow myself satisfaction through lack of permanence. I miss … something… and for a long time, since the last time around, I’ve thought that something was China.

A few months ago, not long after I got there, I went on a hike. It was not my first hike of the trip, nowhere near my last, and far from the longest. It was really not that strenuous at all, yet my lack of concern (focus, preparation, experience) made it by far the most difficult. We started out on a bus, which in that part of the world means much less than it does here. We fishtailed up mountains for a few hours, before hopping out on the side of the road, in the middle of nowhere, to climb to a vaguely-located village. We found the village rather empty, and my partner decided to hike through the valley, to the next mountain, where there was another village - one we’d visited earlier in the week. It wasn’t that far at all, and a through-hike was better than the up-down-around alternative. But I hadn’t thought ahead. I’d had no breakfast, brought no food, and only one *Nalgene of water. I wasn’t used to the altitude, I hadn’t begun to actually work at this, and I was still woefully out of shape. What should have been a few hours work, four at most, became a six hour slog which brought us barely into the rice fields of the next village. Along the way I managed to dump myself into a creek not once, but three times. We spent a few hours at the village, refilled water bottles, and made the hour-and-change hike up to the Da Lu, big road, where we hitched our way back to town. It was dark when we made it back, and we still had a dinner appointment to make. I was tired, frustrated, and all I wanted was a shower and sleep - yet cultural obligation demanded I sit in a humid, boiling, hotpot restaurant for the next two hours. I get home eventually, where, six flights up, I crash headfirst on the couch. I discover exactly what those creek encounters got me, and my still-damp shoes get tossed to the balcony. All the windows are open, the two balcony doors slid to their widest. The electricity is off, meaning no hot water, but that doesn’t matter. At that moment, as China’s “Windy City” earns its name in grand style, I let the breeze blow the day out of my head. I am aching, I am sore, I am thirsty still. I am dirty and in need of a shower, my feet crack and bleed. I am frustrated at the lack of progress during the day, and the seemingly wasted time. Yet, I slowly realize, I am content. I feel as if the blisters have been earned, and as I remember the encounters of the day - the farmer in his rice field who stopped to help us through to the trail (was he more concerned for us or his field, I wonder?), the traditionally-dressed ladies stopped for lunch under the trees, and the endless glasses of tea at dinner - the day seems long. Unwasted. Fulfilled.

Confession: I don’t miss China. I mean, well, of course I miss China, but it’s a longing for no more or less than the sum total of people, places, and experiences “China” denotes. What I miss most is something that could, in theory, be found here, yet I’m not even sure what it is. What I am sure of is that, whatever that nameless elusive was, I went half-way around the world to find it. I have no doubt I’ll find it again… I just wish I knew what I was looking for now.

For this purpose I have raised you up

“I got stabbed - right here!”
The following paragraph is justification for getting to say this until the novelty wears off.
Last week I camped at the beach, and realized that I couldn’t roll my own sleeping bag. I’ve pretended since March that my left hand wasn’t screwed up, but unfortunately bag-stuffing-skills are kind of necessary for my summer adventure. Yesterday I took my doctor up on his standing offer of voluntary torture. My mom learned a lot about my vocabulary in those minutes.

So I leave tomorrow night. No doubt you’ve either gotten an email, facebook message, phone call, etc. over the past two days — during the majority of which I’ve been pretty excited & upbeat. I truly am, but with a solid undercurrent of anxiety. My most overwhelming concerns are as follows:

• Found out yesterday the travel agent Fed-Exed my paper ticket to me. Yesterday.

• I still am homeless in HK, as far as I know.
• I realized this week how woefully unprepared for teaching I am.
• I’m still not packed.

As far as the ticket goes, as of a few minutes ago Mr. FedEx has agreed to have my firstborn - so that’s resolved. Homelessness is because I don’t know if anyone’s meeting me or not, and I’m hesitant to book a hostel until I know for sure. Unpreparedness is partially par for the course, but somewhat due to actual real unpreparedness (crap.). Lack of completely packed bag is simple procrastination and nerves. Trying to remember this purpose is bigger than me.

In any case, you shouldn’t hear from me here until the fall. Skip over to True Places until then.

Practiced at the art of deception

An infinite number of conundrums continue their approach, the good and the bad coming in together.

On the good hand is the fact that unimportant mountains made of insignificant molehills have begun to lose size. Problems that never truly were make their return towards slightly more managable proportions. The bastard child of hindsight and retrospect laughs in your face.

And on the bad hand is the hurt, the pain, the bleeding that no one sees. I don’t want to hear your daggers, to know your words. I don’t want to fall into the nothingness of existence that shoves itself forward to guard against your intrusion. I don’t want to be called names and given labels, to hear the ones I love doing the same to others I love. If I can’t talk then they use needles to bleed the words out, but what they can’t see is that the words aren’t there to begin with. Their lights are too bright to see through the darkness and their words are too sharp to love.

I want to buy an island to avoid the world, to live life without interacting with it. I want to run forever while never moving again. I want to tell you everything and not utter a sound.

But what I want is rarely what I am told I need.

Unwelcome complex

There are people I need to fix, and things I want to help.

There are mistakes I want to stop, and changes I need to make.

There are lessons being learned ‘the hard way,’ and I am powerless to stem the tide.

Because the people are not me, the things are not mine, and the bad cannot be changed through my own influence - yet that never stops me from desperately trying.

…and more often than not, such desperation only adds to the downward spiral, the lessons, the flood of inevitability. The need to do all but shake shoulders and scream I LOVE YOU BUT YOU’RE MAKING A MISTAKE! only leads to worse. Remaining powerless against it all, and still the feeling that - with enough effort - resolution can somehow be granted.

…but I’m full of mistakes.