breath

Mind is a maze of unfinished thoughts, strings of questions and uncertainties. We fly down the road in newly fixed trucky after a week of thanksgiving and family and revisiting my house. There is no music on, only our minds working, gnawing on something. Gnawing on life. I closed a bank account. I picked up my last financial aid check. I visited some of my favorite people. I presented my masters project.

I question whether the faculty thought it decent work or just wanted me out. I felt jealousy and disgust at some of the lengthy praise of the other projects. I couldn't tell if it was just my mind malfunctioning after finally presenting a year and half worth of work, or if her presentation just had too much information to understand. Post presentation party was more like a class reunion that included family members, all but my own. My mom left after my presentation to avoid the icy roads over the pass. My dad couldn't get the time off work. Jules and Andrew were my support crew.

Andrew helped me rescue my giant Ficus tree from Lawrence hall, my last tie to the building I used to be fond of. That building makes me cringe when I get near it. We shook off the dead leaves, made a cover for its pot and carried it to the elevator. It looked sad. We pulled trucky around back and laid it down for the long cold ride to California, covering it with blankets and sleeping mats to protect the branches.

Trucky started running worse and worse. I could feel the tension in the car for the last 1and a half hours as Trucky's engine fluttered, misfiring. We babied it the rest of the way, listening carefully to the flutters and rattles and bumps and responding as best we could. We unpacked all our stuffs. The last one out was Ficus.

We unwrapped its base and filled it with water after placing it in the backyard with the redwoods. The leaves perked up in the warm breeze, a breath of fresh air after 3 years of Lawrence hall.

And sometimes.

And sometimes you just have a bunch of bad days in a row. Bad days that never seem to end. Bad days that cause you to make up stories in your head about what might be going on in someone else's head.

And sometimes you wake up the next morning after having dreamt of spaceships and zooming around in the air and cloudbursts. You wake up and zoom to work on a fast-bike. And work with a kick ass girl who makes chicken noises and sings Billy Jean with you.

And then you get a note from someone saying that the project has finally been built (the REAL kind)-there is an article in the newspaper (the REAL kind), and isn't that your design concept? Then you get an email from your professor saying glad you saw that, and by the way, your design is going to be in landscape architecture magazine next month.

And sometimes, just like that, I can't stop smiling.

day off

for better or worse, i took the day off. I didn't have to work at the coffee shop today and I just couldn't bring myself to open my thesis documents. I avoided them like the plague. I went shopping instead. I bought shirts and bras and underwear. I put on makeup and made tea. I took 2 showers. I listened to Gillian Welch and loggins and messina. I made lavendar brown sugar body scrub for my friend for her birthday.

and I might be a bit more behind. Maybe I should have worked on my presentation or my thesis. But not today. and i'm glad. see my happy face? my mom would say if it were her day off.

sick

in the past week or so I feel like i've been fighting off a bug. not surprising considering i've been working like mad and loosing sleep over my thesis. But I can't seem to shake the buggy knocking at my door. and it doesn't seem to be getting the best of me yet. yet. last night I brought this up to Andrew who said: are you sure you aren't just sick of working on your thesis? I laughed. I'm serious, he said.

I thought about it some more. It could be true, a psychological reaction to something that isn't good for me telling me that isn't good for you, STOP IT! Then I shrugged it off as nothing. There are lots of people getting sick, I told myself. And I am over tired and stressed out. Of course I'm getting sick. Then I took some vitamins and went to bed.

This morning I woke up before the alarm feeling great and refreshed. I walked to the juice shop and then to the library to do some more work. And now I'm here at the library. And my body is starting to ache. And my throat is starting to hurt. And I'm starting to feel sick again. And i'm thinking Andrew was right.

I better finish soon.

fantasy

I've been having this fantasy recently. I've been wishing for the seasons, a sense of slowness. I've been wishing for cold and snow and a fireplace. I've been thinking of home and soup and my parents and my sister and nephew. I've been craving a hot bath after building bob sled runs and having snowball fights. I've been craving sleepovers with my best of friends, snuggling with lots of blankets and good music and conversation and jerry dog. And there is one place this can all happen. home.

fisty mog

My alarm went off at 4:07 am. A blanket of fisty mog covered the valley. The cold wafted in the bedroom door when I walked into the living room to get ready for work without waking Andrew. I set out my clothes on the couch the night before like I always do, though I inevitably forget my socks and have to root through my drawer without light to find a pair. I expected a shock of cold when I walked out the door with my bike, but it was surprisingly warm. Mist stuck to my eyelashes as I rode to work. I ran every red light in town, not a car in sight.

I woke groggy and weary with my head in a vice. I popped the dreaded coveted migraine pill and went to work anyway. Then I giggled at the pills effects after I was over my nausea and vice grips. I get clumsy and forgetful. I once spilled the entire contents of my backpack onto the floor of a public bus after taking one of these pills. Then after collecting all of my belongings from the far ends of the bus, I spilled an entire cup of coffee on the guy in front of me. Fortunately this morning I just felt like I was walking crooked. And forgetting everything.

And when I walked out of work I gave the pear that I had brought for breakfast to a homeless guy outside. And a crazy man played the harmonica and sang in my direction "good morning beautiful" "thank you for the coffee this morning". And a random guy on a cool cruiser bike asked me if I was on my way to school.

simple action.

A cup of tea. Scent of fresh tabacco and vanilla. Orange ash leaves and good company. A bike ride to a distant coffee shop.

I woke this morning with a good feeling. A good feeling that has been hiding out somewhere. A good feeling that apparently needed to be unearthed by exercise and good friends and warm tea. This morning I fixed us a giant pot pie and shoved it in the fridge to cook for dinner. Then i hopped on my bike to meet up with a new friend.

This friend rocks. She writes short stories that verge on prose. She says 'rad' and sings and dances at work. She flies kites. She rides bikes. and I'm thankful for the ray of sanity in this mess of newness.

And here we are: she is grading papers and I am working on my thesis. And for now, i'm smiling.