Checkout Time

Today was hard. Christmas and all didn't really faze me very much, though I didn't entirely expect it to. My body is trying to tell me things I'm not ready to listen to, and is rebelling a bit in the meantime. I think I took that exhaustion and disembodied feeling of the past couple days and turned it into a migraine. Also the parts where I beat myself up over not feeling present I'm sure played a large part. At any rate, I basically slept through our holiday festivities for the most part. I took a long break and slept in the staff tent, and basically zoned out for the rest of the evening.

I am intrigued and curious about all the good spirits in the group right now, and whether it will hold up through expedition. We have the specter of solos and snow staring us down, not to mention another holiday.

I just cant shake the feeling that it doesn't feel like Christmas. Or New Years. Or my birthday. Or 2009 coming on, when 2008 with graduation has long been the most distant mark on my horizon. It doesn't feel like time is marching at all.

Coming At You

It's Christmas eve and I am back in Cleo after a very brief soujourn in Bohdi. I kind of feel better already--the young adults sort of stressed me out. All around I am distracted and foggy today, and I don't like it. I feel sort of disembodied right now, given everything going on drawing my attention away from right here right now.

Right here right now is chilling out in the wall tent, relatively warm and cozy for the first time in days. Right now is laughter and light while the snow continues to fall outside. Right here doesn't quite seem like a holiday yet, but is trying hard. Right now is sort of real and nostalgic and rosy red and glowing. This moment is full of recognition and cameraderie and some homecoming, even hundreds of miles away.

On the other side, my head is full of secret longings and remembrances. My head is full of February and the chance of returning home in a few weeks to a note or an email. My head is all overheard stories and recollections from other people, and a secret inner smile to myself that is apt to make me burst. This place is so fall of his presence, its both torture and kind of reassuirng in a way--he is in fact real and more than a figment of my wayward imagination.

Every now and again I just sort of shake myself out of this hazy reverie. I can't do two weeks of work in this state, I'm exhausted and we are still at base camp.

I am confused that the little window ledge breaking the flow between my heard and head is making an appearance today--maybe simply the sign of not feeling relaxed and grounded and at peace with my responsibility. This whole boy situation has thrown me further from my routine than I'd like to admit.

I'm going to stop now as heres the part wehre things get pretty circular and weird.

Double Time Again

I can't believe tomorrow is Christmas eve. It's tuesday night of another double shift, and it's almost too cold to be writing right now. I'm hanging out in Bohdisatva actually, trying to keep an open mind about working with the young adults for a few days. So far so good, but the last like 48 hours seem such a whirlwind that I have a hard time slowing down longe nough to track on what is good or not good. Bohdi is a bit liberating, a bit scary intimidating, and really fascinating in an introspective kind of way, just trying to figure out where I fit in working amongst ostensibly peers. My biggest fear and why I fought working over here so hard is not being removed at all from the students. I use my age separation a lot to fall back on with the Cleo girls, and my fear is exposing my true scattered spastic self and not showing that I have the resources to be in authority and do my job. I sort of feel like I'm 22 and hae been where they are at in the none too distant past, what right do I have to offer any guidance? That said, I feel like I can finally envision a place and space where I can share some of my story with students here in a safe and appropriate manner. I like that feeling and I like the person who could make that happen quite a lot.

And theres the mee that feels stupid giddy after a two minute interaction with a certain boy on the outgoing shift. It seems we were meant to cross paths again regardless of whether or not I engineer it. I ended up stuck in Cortez to help with half a transport of an Avatar boy. We took long enough at the pediatrician's that the Open side was finishing up lunch when I ducked into the staff tent to grab some tampons on the way down to the sites. Just the hug and the way he looked at me were enough to make my week and prove to be super distracting. But the interaction also was enough to convince me that what happened between us was real and mutual and lingering.

Crazy intense few days and theres more to relate on another moment. I am so happy to see stars tonight for the first time in days. And for the hope to sleep warm tonight in my borrowed wiggy, even if the mercury does in fact touch down at 0 degrees F. Honestly, to sleep at all tonight would be fantastic...

Fearless

Things I am Currently Afraid of:
-winter
-next shift sleeping out at sub zero temperatures
-driving in the snow
-skipping my next period
-why my big toes are still numb after last weekend's snowshoeing adventures
-not having enough money to pay my bills
-the secret thought that the sun won't come out again for a long long time
-seeing boy on my transport in a few days
-my mind when I think about any future with him

Things I am Currently Sure of:
-my way around Durango and enjoyment of
-winter will end
-my sunlamp is god
-chocolate makes winter better
-double butter and cheese rations make life complete
-I wouldn't mind having more regular sex
-I am a great writer when I want to be
-I miss close people in my life, but am doing better and finding and making them here
-the next place I live will be closer to downtown and with some sense of community and people
-I like myself better when I write poetry
-I am not as dramatic as I imagine

Things I am Currently Working on:
-controlling my anxiety around working outdoors through the winter
-cleaning the fuck out of my room before leaving for work on Monday
-slowing down
-admitting how I feel, not how I think I should feel
-accepting the adventures that find their way to me
-balancing being real and authentic with being under control with my students
-not flipping out about spending money
-not freezing to death
-trusting that the universe makes things happen how they should

Specter

It's 1:30 Am and I am bound and determined to sleep in my own bed tonight. The snow is falling softly enough outside that I can't tell whether it is itself a drowsy dream, the whole outer world muted by the storms still going on inside me this evening. I am unconsciously falling back on one of so many mantras which we feed the students--that I must feel this pain fully, breath it in and back out through me so that it becomes a part of me, that the next time I feel this I know that I can sit with it and breath with it and overcome. The specter of past lives and experience sits flat and heavy on my chest tonight, yet surprisingly none of my escapes seem to be helping and I am flattered to be left to my own emotions for this night of hazy reflection on the horizons. I love the light that brings winter storms, pink dim and somber with the hint of that burning freedom that will come with the clearing of the clouds.

So I had a fling. So much more than a fling that I can feel his presence with me, that I wake to the realization that there are months between us with the ache and trepidation of starting out on a long and wild journey to some place untouched and untraveled. My previous 6 days pale as they fade from view, yet clarity seems to be seeping in through the cracks and mortar stones the longer I sit here in this place and acknowledge what an experience this was. I sense the temptation to hide tonight behind these words, though I reach simply for the right ones to write this experience, sear it into the most top layers of my brain is I have seared it into my flesh, and begin the process of turning it round and round to see what I can learn from it.

He came unexpectedly, when I was not looking. I sensed him before I knew him, like a ghost crossing the path in front of me, raising the hair on the back of my neck. Or the warm updrafts we get even still hiking at evening in the desert, like the hot exhale of some desert creature breathing sage down my spine. He brought to me a childhood on a northwest Montana ranch, farmboy revolutionary sensibilities, and a particular enjoyment for reading poetry and western tinged prose aloud. We sat by the river long past dark and listened to the torrent as I told him of my paths and passions, and we talked of wilds, and of saving the world. He took me to bed, and to the mountains, and we laughed it seemed for 6 days straight. He told me my honesty was sexy, and pierced the space between us with those eyes and shit-eating grin. We lay and watched the light return to the day around us, and I never once stopped to wonder wherefrom this blessing, let myself greatfully adrift till this departure day.

And now the clock has since struck and turned me back to a pumpkin, who dare not tempt fate yet with boisterous dreams of another ball. I am switching shifts at work which means we will work opposite for a time. Which means I must again bolster my faith in the universe that things happen as they shall and as they must. I confide that my convictions in the world right now are as paper thin as the air outside my window. The specter of our paths crossing again makes me want to do irrational and impulsive things--to have this albeit external good return to my life I would risk more than is healthy.

I know my work for the moment is to stay in this place. To breath through it and with it and sit next to it and stroke it, though running or dulling the sharp edges seem like the best course of action. Being in a heart space for so many running days was such a relief I hope to hold on to the ghosts of this experience for a while, and to explore the dark spaces which remain to haunt me.

I will do this, I can do this. I have wanted nothing more than to be the person who can risk with out fear, and love with the wild abandon that I so crave for myself.

Where I'm At: Take Two

"This is what real education is about--opening our naked, scarred, vulnerable, precious souls to each other."
~Grace Feuerverger

Where I'm At

"

come, my love. we have mountains to climb and wilderness to wander. you have shown me a love that cannot be given or taken. let us bask in the fullness of ourselves. a simple kiss now blood and breath, both awakened. a balanced diet to sustain health and life. we will wax and wane in attention given from our father. we can trust he will return, yet, she is here. she has granted us this land to forge her cycle, and when in doubt she places the ocean in our tears. come my love, we have oceans to sail. the painted nature of this earth is water-based and will fade if not tended. let us retrace the origin of a kiss. they have ravished your heart and mind, but your breath travels freely out of your mouth and into mine. there, is the current i wish to sail. here is a love, uncharted. throw away your map and swallow this cratered pill. pull it from the sky and let it dissolve under your tongue. it is only a matter of time before we are timeless. " ~Saul Stacey Williams