After FINALLY submitting my last few things for the Peace Corps, I received what seems like pretty concrete info about dates and stuff. Also, these dates somewhat change my I'm-leaving-in-two-months crisis, as it's even less than that now. Anyway, In case you're interested....
25th Sept: Orientation in Philly
27th Sept: Depart for Ukraine with the 70 other members in my group
1st Oct: Find my way to my 3-month home to begin PST (Pre-Service Training)
21st Dec: Start my job in my permanent location (not necessarily the same as PST)
I'm probably going to head out a week early to visit Stef in DC before orientation, which puts my final day in CA somewhere around the 20th Sept. The Peace Corps will help me book my tickets and stuff at the end of August, so that's when I'll have a SOLID date of my departure. I'm going on a few trips here and there before I go...I'm looking forward to Denver and my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary celebration next weekend and I'll try to hit up Tucson to see my mom's side in early Sept.
So, day trips to Disneyland and Catalina, living it up with the fam here and there, and I'm off! It's going to be a great end to my summer, and I think I'll really be ready to go when the time comes. I've been unexpectedly and backwardsly blessed with a pretty light schedule this summer, which will definitely help in allowing me to leave with my goals accomplished. There will probably be quite a few In 'N Out runs and Schooner days...so you locals feel free to hit me up and enjoy So Cal life with me! :)
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
Two months, a little math and a lot of reality
All day today I had this niggling feeling that there was something significant about today's date: the 28th. July 28th...28th 28th...hm... Then Kelly and I were discussing how quickly the summer's gone, and it dawned. Two months until my departure date. In late May (when I got my placement) I still had allllllll summer, and now I have two months. Two months including a week at my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary, another week at my other grandparents' in Tuscon, a weekend in San Diego with beautiful friends and a week in DC with the BFF...two months gets whittled down pretty quickly. There's stuff to do still! Kelly and I have Catalina tickets, and we're waiting on Disneyland tickets (as well as her completion of the MCAT so she can do something other than study). I still have So Cal things to do like ride a bus and DO Hollywood/LA (whatever that means). This is my chance; who knows when I'll be back here again? And none of that even includes the shopping still to be done (the list includes long johns, a sleeping bag, boots, and of course, more socks), the packing to figure out, the memberships and subscriptions to cancel...oi! It's going to be a busy two months.
I realised a few weeks ago (and it's probably pretty obvious by now) that my enthusiasm for leaving had begun to wane. I am no longer poring over books about Ukraine, studying my phrases relentlessly, or checking the current weather/temperatures in Europe. And maybe it's not that my passion has deflated so much as it has given way to reality. In these short two months, my life will gradually be divided up into little parts that will remain here or there or somewhere else, and I have to decide that now. There are necklaces and earrings and tops to bequeath to my lovely sisters, but which ones will "translate" into Ukrainian fashion? The few sicks of furniture and appliances I own must be farmed out, and which are on "loan" and which are to be given? How much exactly IS 50 pounds per suitcase? Should I bring texts/books/other resources? I want to bring my laptop, but how do I insure it? Which pieces of my current life will be able to go with me, and what will I actually want when I'm there?
But dividing my life isn't about stuff, really. Those things I can figure out. It's the realizing that I'm subtracting myself from my people that has sunk reality into my imminent departure. I can bring a favorite t-shirt and pair of earrings to remind me of me, but I cannot uproot and transport my people. I won't be able to just call up friends to shoot the breeze any old time. I won't be able to crash friends' houses/apartments for dinner and a little hang out time. I won't have a roommate who's also a best friend and I won't attend themed birthday parties for my growing nieces and nephews. I can only imagine how many weddings I'll miss. Births, deaths. Life will go on, and I will of course have my own adventure as well, and I will establish my own community, but it's hard not to feel loss at the life I leave behind. And perhaps this is where starry-eyed enthusiasm gets real.
It's really not about what's being removed, subtracted. I'm not actually losing anything, because my people will still be here. They will be changed, and so will I. But they're always my people. I signed up for this adventure, and I'm still thrilled to take it on. But in less than two months, I will have to say good bye to a lot of who I am now and the life that makes up "me." And I think it will be hard.
So, the reality is that I have two months. I have tickets to Disneyland and a cell phone and an awesome station wagon to take me wherever I will go. To whomever I will go, even. And when two months are over, I will say goodbye to stuff, to people, and, in a sense, to part of me. I will have divided up my life to the point that it really will only be me leaving, and I'll find out exactly who that person is. And I think I will like her. I cherish those who have brought me here and loved me, and I am stoked to be able to take this person to another corner of the world and to share what's been lavished, and to have the favor added right back. My people will still and always be my people, different, but my people. And that's the beauty of multiplying.
I realised a few weeks ago (and it's probably pretty obvious by now) that my enthusiasm for leaving had begun to wane. I am no longer poring over books about Ukraine, studying my phrases relentlessly, or checking the current weather/temperatures in Europe. And maybe it's not that my passion has deflated so much as it has given way to reality. In these short two months, my life will gradually be divided up into little parts that will remain here or there or somewhere else, and I have to decide that now. There are necklaces and earrings and tops to bequeath to my lovely sisters, but which ones will "translate" into Ukrainian fashion? The few sicks of furniture and appliances I own must be farmed out, and which are on "loan" and which are to be given? How much exactly IS 50 pounds per suitcase? Should I bring texts/books/other resources? I want to bring my laptop, but how do I insure it? Which pieces of my current life will be able to go with me, and what will I actually want when I'm there?
But dividing my life isn't about stuff, really. Those things I can figure out. It's the realizing that I'm subtracting myself from my people that has sunk reality into my imminent departure. I can bring a favorite t-shirt and pair of earrings to remind me of me, but I cannot uproot and transport my people. I won't be able to just call up friends to shoot the breeze any old time. I won't be able to crash friends' houses/apartments for dinner and a little hang out time. I won't have a roommate who's also a best friend and I won't attend themed birthday parties for my growing nieces and nephews. I can only imagine how many weddings I'll miss. Births, deaths. Life will go on, and I will of course have my own adventure as well, and I will establish my own community, but it's hard not to feel loss at the life I leave behind. And perhaps this is where starry-eyed enthusiasm gets real.
It's really not about what's being removed, subtracted. I'm not actually losing anything, because my people will still be here. They will be changed, and so will I. But they're always my people. I signed up for this adventure, and I'm still thrilled to take it on. But in less than two months, I will have to say good bye to a lot of who I am now and the life that makes up "me." And I think it will be hard.
So, the reality is that I have two months. I have tickets to Disneyland and a cell phone and an awesome station wagon to take me wherever I will go. To whomever I will go, even. And when two months are over, I will say goodbye to stuff, to people, and, in a sense, to part of me. I will have divided up my life to the point that it really will only be me leaving, and I'll find out exactly who that person is. And I think I will like her. I cherish those who have brought me here and loved me, and I am stoked to be able to take this person to another corner of the world and to share what's been lavished, and to have the favor added right back. My people will still and always be my people, different, but my people. And that's the beauty of multiplying.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Narrating flowers
I sat outside on my building's "balcony" tonight because it was beautiful. A warm night, a glass of wine in hand, and a heart full. And I kept thinking about two things: the opening speech in the movie, Shop Girl, and a passage from Gertrude Stein's The Making of Americans. Now, the movie isn't much to speak of...Jill and I sat there watching it with semi-horrified faces at how tedious and self-gratifying it was...but the narrator, Steve Martin, begins the film with this speech:
"What Mirabelle needs is an omniscient voice to illuminate and spotlight her and to inform everyone that this one has value, this one standing behind the counter in the glove department and to find her counterpart and bring him to her."
And I got to thinking. There's the idea that an ordinary life becomes fantastic when there is a voice to narrate--to choose. That life. Chosen. Picked out as something in the ordinary but not of the ordinary. A marvelous concept, really, and one that countless love stories have played off of since before the screen ever conceived silver. It is love, in a sense. Someone to say you're special, and then to DO...to make it so. Beautiful. Perfect. There is even a white blossom, a flower even, that makes that statement a truth...a flower in front of me to be narrated.
And to this we progress to the repeating of the self, courtesy of our dear friend Gertrude. Every person is the repeating of themselfves, and it is the job of the lover to see and love that repeating. The repeating. Ordinary, until someone gives it narration, and then it is beautiful, perfect. How is any of us beautiful, perfect? Maybe not until someone sees the repeating and calls it so--beautiful perfect expression of the self, for it is only in the repeating of the self that we are lovable--for that is the true essence of the repeating.
But what of the danger in waiting to be seen to be repeating? What if no one narrates my, or your, life? What then? Are you, or am I, valid or common, inconsequential? Special, picked out or ordinary? Does a white flower, beautiful and perfect, communicate this? Yes and no. The white flower is, " I see you, and you are beautiful." But the day-to-day repeating--those are the hundreds of choices we must make every single day to act on our own self-definition. We must first choose the big choice--to be beautiful and perfect, and then we can make those infinite tiny choices to live that, that beautiful perfection. A flower lives a short while, and it grows a limited number of petals, but each must live up to its special beauty to make its perfection. So do we. And that, dear friends, is worth narrating.
"What Mirabelle needs is an omniscient voice to illuminate and spotlight her and to inform everyone that this one has value, this one standing behind the counter in the glove department and to find her counterpart and bring him to her."
And I got to thinking. There's the idea that an ordinary life becomes fantastic when there is a voice to narrate--to choose. That life. Chosen. Picked out as something in the ordinary but not of the ordinary. A marvelous concept, really, and one that countless love stories have played off of since before the screen ever conceived silver. It is love, in a sense. Someone to say you're special, and then to DO...to make it so. Beautiful. Perfect. There is even a white blossom, a flower even, that makes that statement a truth...a flower in front of me to be narrated.
And to this we progress to the repeating of the self, courtesy of our dear friend Gertrude. Every person is the repeating of themselfves, and it is the job of the lover to see and love that repeating. The repeating. Ordinary, until someone gives it narration, and then it is beautiful, perfect. How is any of us beautiful, perfect? Maybe not until someone sees the repeating and calls it so--beautiful perfect expression of the self, for it is only in the repeating of the self that we are lovable--for that is the true essence of the repeating.
But what of the danger in waiting to be seen to be repeating? What if no one narrates my, or your, life? What then? Are you, or am I, valid or common, inconsequential? Special, picked out or ordinary? Does a white flower, beautiful and perfect, communicate this? Yes and no. The white flower is, " I see you, and you are beautiful." But the day-to-day repeating--those are the hundreds of choices we must make every single day to act on our own self-definition. We must first choose the big choice--to be beautiful and perfect, and then we can make those infinite tiny choices to live that, that beautiful perfection. A flower lives a short while, and it grows a limited number of petals, but each must live up to its special beauty to make its perfection. So do we. And that, dear friends, is worth narrating.
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