Prospective Retrospective Perspective

I am growing to appreciate some these bitterly cold nights where my feet freeze and fire just wont come. I am attempting to write from my shelter in my sleeping bag still, while the coyotes sing in the dawn, and the sky grows slowly rosy. Nights such as these test my stamina and test my faith and conviction that the world keeps turning and the light will come again.

I sort of can't believe it's almost New Years again. I spent the holiday this time last year in Columbia ignoring my thesis, getting ready for that ridiculous train trip, and sitting at home alone while even my folks went out and partied. January brought that epic cross country adventure, marked by endless text message conversations through the empty middle west, singing, and my face plastered to the windows for a one and only glimpse of the Rockies. February I have little to no recollection of. I remember a bitter cold snap, hiding out in the cemetary above campus in the frigid sunshine, just for a clear and unobstructed view of mountains. In February I ignored the Portland rains and began to walk all the way down Terwilliger to catch the Barbur busses. In February Shawn and me went out briefly, and LBD and I made winter and the city ours. March I only think of school and more school. March and my thesis excited me. Shoot, in March my other classes excited me. In March I read my environmental justice books for fun. April I think about spring break and crunch time. April was my first huge thesis deadline. I started applying for work in April, started getting the wrong offers in April. In April we adventured to the coast for that one tumultous afternoon. April was cold and wet. And then May was such a hellraiser, I sort of can't believe I survived her. May was deadlines and arrivals and departures and the very lasts of so many things. May I graduated from college, finished my thesis and was very well recieved, packed up my appartment, left Portland twice, and survived my family. In May I refused to say goodbye. In May the adventuring began for real. I spent May in four timezones.

June was when I realized that Birch Trail was going to be way different the second time around. June we crashed and burned in the Boundary Waters the first trip out, and I got my first taste of the wrong side of Gabe Chernov. July I continued to continue screw up in their eyes, back to the Boundary Waters with Lisa, get blown nearly to smithereens (or Canada) on Lake 3, and continue to sneak out and run away to Ashland and the lakeshore for some quiet time. August I left Wisconsin angry and sad, and quite conflicted that it was possibly for the last time. In August I landed at home for good for the first time in awhile. August also brought that epic Texas roadtrip with Kathy and those damn cats, and the day to day absurdities of temping in office buildings. In August I bought my first car, and freaked out to Ellen about moving west almost daily. I sat through September and waited impatiently. September was more departing and arriving and epic drives. I remember September with an altitude headache, for coming to Open Sky, and for being homeless for awhile. September also brought the mindfuck that was training, and the very beginning of the long slow realization that this is my work and that in a lot of respects I am living the life I imagined for myself. October terrified and frusterated me, full of budgets and logistics and all-too-adult requisites for my likings. October was sunrise from a couch in Emily's living room, while the steam train railed off the canyon walls and eating leftover P-food for lack of a better option. October was more homelessness, and learning to trust that thee universe provides for me as it should. October also was my monumentally frusterating first shift in Cleo, impotent and that breakthrough second shift around election day and halloween where things finally started making a little sense. I remember November for the tremendous let down and monumental self-growth that happened over those three weeks of not working. November was all about synchronicity and those secret unexpectedly spiritual moments that sneak up when you're not looking and suprise you with openness and profound knowledge and strength. December started out silently screaming with both the awesomeness and frustration fo that first double shift over Thanksgiving. I will remember this December however, not for some work milestone. I'll look back and know that this month was one of the very few in my adult (?) life where I truely set down my anxieties for a moment, went with the flow, and lead from my heart. More importantly, I went where my heart took me and was open to the experience.

I don't believe in New Year's resolutions really. I think its dangerous to compartmentalize growth and change and commitment like that. 2009 just seems a bit unprecedented to me, 2008 was the most distant landmark on my map for so long that this crossing over is like sailing off the edge of the Earth. For 2009 I want to see a continued deepening of relationships in all directions. I've started recently a lot of work on family ties, big, scary, lifechanging work that I'd like to see come to fruition. Whether or not Jack is the guy for this moment, I'd like to see that part of myself come out more often, and unabashedly so. I'd like to do some serious body and energy work to look at the block in the channels between my head and heart, though I know it can't and wont happen overnight. I'd like to be financially stable to put some money away, start paying off my mother, and be able to see a shrink and do some accupuncture at least once a month. I'd like to find some additional social outlets, have a good time on my off-shifts, and still not come to work so exhausted. I want to explore the southwest, and learn more about what is to be my adopted homeland. I want to visit Portland at least once. I want to read more books and watch more movies and hear more lectures and truely push myself and engage myself intellectually. Intellect is so much bigger than school and academia. I want to be less afraid in 2009. I want to know that I appreciate and value everything that I've been given, and that I grab the moments that speak to me.