duh i miss you! will send the letters today then just figured it would take longer then that. i booked --------- again in may 2 days after you get back so you will get to see them!!!
i'll have a homecoming show. that's awesome. that week is going to rule with so many good feelings and i can't believe everything that's happening.
so that means i'm thinking about summer. absolutely frustrated with trying to figure out collegiate things today, but it seems to be an enduring process that will get figured out sooner or later, and to my benefit, hopefully. but SUMMER. half nomad, half home. home? what is home? where is home?
You ever feel you were meant to be alone?
Because I saw a play and a character said
that he was destined to never feel at home
Don't go tonight, I'm looking for salt in a snow globe
Because what I had is slipping fast.
Dr. Howe, Please call back
I'm not sleeping in, I don't care
I'm singing loud but no one hears
I'll wake up tomorrow and still feel wrong for these days
What I had is slipping fast
Dr. Howe Please call me back.
january, 2008. anaheim, ca.
i saw that photo this morning and started crying. there are days where i feel absolutely stripped of my skin, my protective layer of friends all over the place and as much as i want to scream i'm still here far away and i feel like i'm caught in some sort of soundproof, bulletproof box. i got so flustered with my feelings that i had to walk away, go on a walk, somewhere off campus to clear my head. i ended up at the quaker library checking out more books that will subdue whatever cravings i have for home comfort. is that why i read so much these days? in the meantime i'm trying not to have my heart spill all over the keyboard and i know the whole not always accessible thing is GOOD in the long run (right?) but somedays it's just too difficult.
i will not relapse into old patterns.
these feelings are bookends to an ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC spring break.
we began in the small town of san vicente in the nicoya peninsula, spending a few hours in the artisan ceramic community. from there we went to palo verde to check out the dry forest. believe it or not, the dry forest is the opposite of the rain forest. surprise! it was super hot and all the trees lose their leaves, like in the winter for deciduous North American trees. the following day we hiked out to the limestone cliffs (that came from the OCEAN MILLIONS OF YEAR AGO) and talked about megafauna and evolutionary anachronisms. later we went out for some birdwatching and Emma almost stepped on a baby crocodile. Stayed to watch the sunset over the Guanacaste reserve and came back after dinner to listen to the frogs and look at stars.
I think the first genuine "take my breath away" moment of this trip was after we entered Nicaragua on the Monday, as we passed the windmills. next week we're going to the Tilaran windmills here in Costa Rica, but the absolute precision and mechanical beauty of these massive windmills in the middle of a somewhat deserted, hilly landscape, it hit me harder than any other sight I've seen, which feels odd to acknowledge. At any rate, we were in Nicaragua. We stopped by the ferry and the boys ran into Lake Nicaragua for some brief swimming. And behind them, the volcanoes. The water was perfect. We continued on to Granada, a Spanish-colonial town still under the mass tourist radar. My mom came here in the fall of 2007 and was obsessed with the doors. I completely understand why. For the first time since I was a photo intern for National Geographic (summer 2005), I had the pure motivation, and somewhat of a need, to go out and shoot film. I went out for a couple hours as soon as we got into Granada, and then the following morning at sunrise. I loved it. It was also possible I loved it for the ability to get away from the mass group of my peers.
Most of my time in Nicaragua was spent with Matt, who's become my salsa partner now for the remainder of this Central American adventure, grabbing the attention of locals and tourists alike. Even outside of that particular situation, he accompanied
me on some of my photographic journeys and was just a genuinely good companion throughout this part of spring break (well, in general).
Okay, so after Granada things went up in the air. We ended up not able to go to Ometepe, so the group changed plans to go to San Juan del Sur, a smallish surf bum town on the Pacific Coast. There was a little too much spring break attitude for me but it was nice to be at the beach on my own time and own accord.
We headed back to Costa Rica with the masses splitting off into smaller groups. I headed to Playa Junquillal, a black sand beach on the Nicoya Peninsula with eight other members of the group. We stayed at a small hotel run by an older German-Tica couple who were absolutely sweet and made it impossible to not be in love with the place. We were 100 meters from the beach. The town itself was made up of mainly older (post-40 years old) tourists or retirees, and a relatively large German population. We settled in on Thursday, spending the remaining but of the day after our arrival walking on the beach. On Friday we spent the morning playing in the surf and the afternoon RIDING HORSES ACROSS THE BEACH.
okay. I used to ride horses. I worked at a stable for multiple years during my adolescence, but haven't been on a horse since in multiple years. I was not going to pass this opportunity up. My horse was named Fandango (like the dance, not the online movie site). He was a smaller and less prestigious version of Rex, the horse I used to ride. Fandango had an attitude, a good attitude, but an attitude nonetheless. He just wanted to run. I wanted to run. We ended up running. It was great. I mean, quite possibly the happiest moment of my break, absolute, pure happiness.
On Saturday Emma and I walked down to Playa Blanca, which isn't really a white sand beach as much as millions and millions of little pieces of shell. We met the rest of the group, who had gone kayaking in the mangroves that morning (there weren't enough kayaks so Emma and I were going to go on Sunday, but that ended up falling through), and went snorkeling. It was my first time, and I enjoyed it a ton. I saw soooo many fish, and Emma saw an OCTOPUS. We returned to the hotel at sunset and Rainer (the owner) made us this absolutely fantastic dinner.
The later nights were spent playing card games and other camp-like activities. I really like Hearts. I also learned I am hyperallergic to mosquito bites, among other insect bites.
On Sunday we spent the morning at the beach, Katie almost got destroyed by a Stringray but ducked just in time. In the midafternoon we headed back to Monteverde, our cold, misty, work-filled residence, and as I listen to the Smiths I wonder in whose arms I will fall asleep (inevitably the carseat's, for now).
So that's where we are now. The final month of class, research proposals all coming together. We're all stressed, we're all overwhelmed, but we're in that time between the introduction and the immersion in our projects, so it's scary, the amount of work we have to do to get everything done in the next month. but it will get done, it will get done well (as Matt told me the other day, "we could never do mediocre work because we don't know how to."). We just have to, you know, do it.
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