I bought my ticket to Paris. And tonight, I am performing one of my burlesque routines. Because today is a day of saying Yes to life. I could have turned down the chance to perform tonight, but it seemed aesthetically wrong to do so. Because it's just that -- a chance. And we've got to take chances, haven't we?

(Sorry for the poor quality of writing; I am dancing out the door!)

Duck!

(The animal, that is, not the verb.)

I dreamt my mom died. In reality, she didn't die, but she, my brother, and my stepdad are moving to Oregon by the end of July. They finally sold their house, as of about three days ago.

In the dream, I was crying at her funeral, saying, "I've tried to block out how sad her death made me, but now that it's time to bury her, it's all hitting me at once." Hopefully that moment won't happen when the moving vans are pulling away. The awareness this dream brought me should help prevent that, I guess.

I've been having a lot more significant dreams since I started reading "Women Who Run with Wolves," the book on sacred femininity I was talking about. I need to make a log of all of them, before I forget.

I've been painting up a storm -- if I can ever find my camera cord, I'll be sure to take pictures and show you all.

Kinda bleh. I was considering going out tonight, since it's Saturday, but I caught the headcold that's going around at work, and I *did* just stock up on about eight of my all-time favorite movies, so I might call it a quiet evening after I get off from work.

Kyle might move here. AHHHH! That kind of throws a monkey wrench in my plans to escape to Europe for three months next summer, but then again, maybe it doesn't.

I need to write massively in here, but I just haven't been able to find the time lately. My hope is that that will change soon.

There are seven little candles in my new room. I'm happy that I grew up to be someone who actually fulfilled her dream of having a candle-lit bedroom.

I am also in the process of dying my hair. Or at least the bottom inch or so of my hair. Turquoise.

And of reading an excellent book on sacred femininity, womanhood, and mythology.

Tomorrow, I am taking my mom for a pedicure and getting a manicure myself, courtesy of the Gene Juarez gift certificate I was given over a year ago, and which I am finally cashing in.

I have several projects open -- the web comic, a short story, and a series of elemental paintings I am working on. The first was a mermaid, another thing I promised myself I would paint, and then actually did.

I didn't realize there was a theme to all of this when I started writing, but I'm happy to see that the underlying thesis is: we keep our promises to ourselves if we set our minds and hearts to it, even in spite of our best efforts to sabotage, distract, and thwart ourselves. I am one who keeps her promises to herself, even if sometimes there is an "eventually" tacked on to the end of the "and so it was."

That is a comforting thought indeed.

Back from the Abyss yet again! Yeah...it's been, what, two weeks since I posted in here? Too long. Way too long. But I have been busy moving into a Real Honest To Goodness HOME (!!!), and struggling to track down my  new housemate so he can give me the key for the wireless Internet. Finally, I have accomplished both these things, so back to LiveJournal it is.

First, though -- I think I'm mostly caught up on my Friends page -- my heart goes out to all of you who are having a hard time, or who have been having a hard time, due to illness, heartbreak, stress, or otherwise. I know I can't do much from Seattle but offer support to my friends far and wide, but please know you have a couch to crash on in the great Pacific Northwest should you need an escape. I can't promise good cooking, but I do have a gigantic tiger you can use as a pillow, and that's worth a lot in this life. ;)

Well, let's dive a little. Most importantly, I have a home. A home. A real home. Up until a week ago, I had literally been couch/bed surfing for five months. That really only hit me a few weeks ago, when I opted to completely fall apart at Lars' place because, and I quote, "I don't belong anywheeeere (wail)." But it was true. In January, I rented the cabin on Linda's property, but the conditions were so disquieting, I spent all of five nights there out of the whole month. True, it had its good points, like the rooster that woke me up each morning by greeting the sun with its caw, access to Linda's beautiful turquoise kitchen up in the main house, and a friendly bit of solitude in which I painted exactly one picture and wrote exactly five little poems. But the fact of the matter was, it was not within walking distance to ANYTHING, required a $20 taxi ride to GET to anything, had no phone reception, no indoor plumbing, and frankly, made me feel pretty stifled and claustrophobic, in spite of the cool loft bed. Really, it was the playhouse Linda's daughters had outgrown turned into a vagrant hotel, and that was all I could use it for.

So then what? I rekindled my internship with YES! Magazine. Oh my. I guess the Intern House (holy place that it is) became a home for a little while...a week, maybe. I did some painting there, and started participating in Bainbridge Island's art-life, and yes, there were a few communal dinners, and yes, the girls and I did share a few heartfelt conversations spent perched delicately about the common room, but really...the thing that made that home Home was...elusive, at best. It was always Home when I was there before, except for one little two-month period, because of the people. "The people make the place," obviously, but especially in a group house. But also, there is the gelling of the people. I, myself, was too busy/chaotic to enjoy the nights of presence and stability that might have been there. I was unable to settle in quietude whatsoever for the majority of my time on Bainbridge, this past time. How different it was from the time before, when I would nestle into that Home like a bird in a nest. Of course, I still spread my wings and flew, but it was my place to return to, to rest and rejuvenate. This time, it was, "Hi, house. Hi, holy place of my memories. Just here to pick up a set of pasties and a change of panties. Maybe a feather boa or my phone charger. Have a spot of tea with me, which I'll drink standing up; then I must be off. Later, House." The meals I ate in that house, this time, were eaten standing up. I was always flitting to and fro, not even stopping to catch a breath. It took me two months to even bother to decorate my bedroom, which I did mainly on principle.

Nevertheless, of course I did stay there occasionally, and it was a place I could rely on if all else failed. There was also my dad's, where I know I will always be welcome. As well as my mom's. I prefer not to stay there, as that place is haunted by many a bad memory, but then, maybe I am too inclined to hang on to the past with iron gauntlets. Some ghosts that have crawled out of my mouth lately, when I'm on the worse side of soberness, have caused me to think so. Do I really need to hold on to stuff that happened to me in that house when I was 17? 15? 12? Do these memories deserve to be revisited, like photos or a scrapbook, or is keeping them open just filling me with more prickles and angst than is worth it? All we are is our memories. We are a product of our pasts. But then again, all we are is who we are any given day, too. This is tangential.

Then I ended up getting wrapped up in this life of the city, and when you're out in the city until 12 or later, and your options are: 1. go back to Bainbridge, which entails a 35-minute ferry ride followed by either a $7 cab ride or a 40-minute walk, or 2. go back to Edmonds, which is at least two buses away, one of which you're pretty sure doesn't run past 11:30, what do you do? Yeah, you couch surf. You see whom you can stay with. You start carrying clothes around in a shoulder bag, along with a toothbrush and toothpaste, and deodorant, just to be on the safe side. You learn to carry your life on your back. Getting by with just the bare necessities. Makeup, of course. Phone. Music, of course, which is a "21st century developed world necessity," though of course I detect the irony in that. Oh, and you have to keep the clothes fresh, though, because A. you are a lady, not a scumbag and B. you earn your living at a place where this is expected. It's a clothing boutique, for God's sake. You've gotta look sharp, or at least put together. So you jet back to "home base" and snatch up a clean dress and drop off the used laundry in the hamper, to be dealt with later. You become an urban nomad and you carry your life on your back. After a few months of this, your shoulder starts to ache from the weight of it. Sometimes you carry a spare pair of shoes. In my case, sometimes you're going to dance practice, so you carry clean clothes, two costumes (in this case, employ a second bag, maybe a backpack), and your laptop. Oh, and food, of course, because you're the kind of person who, when she wakes up, needs to eat nearly immediately, and Lord knows only a tiny fraction of the places you're welcome serve breakfast. Silly vegan.

My dad would infuriate me -- "You know where you live," he'd say. "Are you coming by tonight?" he'd ask. "I don't know. I don't know where I'll end up after work/after partying/after practice. I just have to see how it goes."

"Okay," he'd say. "Well, you know where you live."

"No, I don't," I've wanted to say. "I don't know where I live. I live nowhere. I live everywhere. I live in Seattle; that's all I know. I think. Seattle and Edmonds and Bainbridge. I live in Washington. That's all." Nowhere other than that.

I told people, "I'm like that cat -- the one who frequents a certain block, but eats and sleeps and receives affection from a different house on that block each night of the week." The stray cat. No one owns that cat, so that cat has its freedom, but also, that cat belongs to no one, so there is no place where it's ever truly welcome.

I tried to remain as self-sufficient as possible -- like I said, I carried food, carried toiletries, tried to wash or stack any dishes I used -- tried not to impose on anybody's resources, including my parents'. Showered in various showers, yes. Smelled like different shampoos, yes. Did my own scent burn through all of that? I couldn't say. I don't like smelling like somebody else's shampoo. Boy shampoo or mom shampoo. I want my own shower. I want my own place. My shoulder hurts from all these clothes, from all these precautions and proprieties, and mostly from the incorrigible instability that is permeating my 23-year-old existence. The fact that when I sleep, traditionally, I sleep like the dead, but that these days I sleep with one eye open because I don't want to wake up and not know, momentarily, where I am. That life
got
old.
It was exciting for a while but it got old. My shoulder got more and more bruised and tilted.

It was finally a banal comment that made me burst into tears. "I should help you with the dishes," I had said. "No, you don't have to do the dishes. You're a guest here."
And I just freaking lost it.
He meant it in a nice way, of course. But dammit, I wanted to do the dishes. To have some sense of permanence, of responsibility, of ownership. I wanted to be treated like a resident, somewhere, by someone, instead of a fly-by. But what do you expect, Catherine, when you lead the life of a fly-by? I know; it's cyclical logic. The arrow points only to your own choices. I know, but still, there I stood, crying my eyes out, saying, "I have no home. I have no home." And aching for a home.

It's interesting, the places that have been Home. I spent the majority of my adolescence living primarily with my mom, since I wanted to be available to help with William, but it was my dad's old house in Greenwood that always felt like Home. I would walk in, and see the clutter, and the odd combination of Sailor Moon artwork hanging from antique cabinets, and salivate over the sweet scent of my dad's famous comfort food special -- teriyaki halibut, curried broccoli, and garlic mashed potatoes -- and hear the twangs of the Playstation in the background... and I would be Home. My energy would relax and exhale. Uncoil, you might say. Become slack. "Ahhh..." It is a rare thing, for me.

Then, I suppose, it was the Da Vinci dorm at Switzerland. It became Home quickly, because I immediately settled into a Family, and so, the people made the place.

Japan? Japan was never a home. Except maybe certain temples, and when the sakura petals fell. The taste of a steaming purple yam was home. Zaru soba with sesame seeds and green onions was home. Harajuku at night had stirrings of a home. But the apartment? Never. That was a prison cell.

The Intern House was home. I loved so much there, and grew so well, how could that space not become close to my heart? But since then, there has been nothing. I lived back at my dad's until my defiance led me to financial independence and to the UW dorms. I lived in two different dorms, for three months apiece. Then I lived at dad's again, but also at Lars'. If I had anything like a home during that time, it was with Lars, but I was, and remain, wary of the fact that I don't live there. It's not mine. He welcomes me, kindly, overwhelmingly kindly, but it's still his place. I'm still a stray cat he takes in.

But.
Now I have a home. I am renting it for $450 a month plus the cost of utilities. It is situated in Ravenna, a beautiful green neighborhood just above the U-District. It is close enough to The City that night life is readily available, but removed enough from The City that I don't fear for my safety walking alone at night. It is a modest house from the outside, a tone of awkward gold, to be exact, but it has a stunning backyard where I swear I feel the presence of fairies (nice ones), and on the inside, there is me, and there is Chandra, a Montessori preschool teacher from Sri Lanka who is also the author of three novels (all of which center on philosophy, religion, mysticism, and love...!), and an avid painter. Already we have shared a few conversations about Taoism and Jung, and I can't wait to get to know him more. He is on the top level of the house, and I am on the bottom, where I have my own bathroom and private entrance. We share the kitchen, but our schedules are basically inversions of each other, so we rarely meet. My room has an enormous window that looks out on green, and even as I write I can hear birds twittering. When I called about the ad, Chandra told me, "this is a place to come if you want to feel very nurtured." I didn't understand at the time, or maybe I just wasn't listening with my heart. I was "on the hunt" for a place to live, and didn't care to hear about the pear tree in the front yard or the cobblestone path, much less the easel he plans to set up in lieu of the TV. I just wanted "A PLACE." But this is not just "a place," this is my place. I was led here, divinely, for a reason. I have, at last, set down my shoulder bag and begun to massage the tilted muscle. These days, I just carry a purse.

Of course, that last statement isn't entirely true. This is me we're talking about, and I do like my excess baggage, be it good or be it bad. I have started to carry another item with me -- a black hardcover book, which contains the first few pages of the web comic I have started to illustrate. Mind you, it's not a "web" comic yet -- I want to get some stock under my belt before posting anything and committing to an update schedule -- but yes. Yes, glorious yes, it is begun. The story that's been brewing in my chest since I was 10. I'm not settled on a title, and some of the "cornier" stuff is going to need tweaking, but by and large, I plan to respect the story. My story. The story that was gifted to me -- because like Rowling and Tolkein said, sometimes you just "receive" a story. It goes into your head. I've always said I'm not very good at inventing stories, but this one just came into my head, so it must be the one I'm meant to tell. Oh, web comic. I love you in my life.

I'm experiencing, basically, a homecoming. A return to the self. I drew something horrid and beautiful at work the other day, of all my divided and yet, somehow unified selves. It is very raw and very intense, and it just flowed out, unasked. But it really gave me pause to think. There was my inner child, sitting with her knees tucked up, just kind of witnessing all the bullshit that my other pieces are conjuring. That made me sad. In learning to be more fierce, to do battle, to love and fight passionately, to elude danger, to seduce, to explore and dabble in more and more walks of life and sacred archetypes, I've made the quiet dreamer in me go a little silent. It broke my heart to look at that silenced inner dreamer. So I resolved to pay her more respect. And with excellent results, I feel. It's not to say I'll compromise Ruby Sparks for Neko Noire, but little Neko has a lot to offer. Her heart is pure. And I like the idea of being a burlesque dancer who goes home at the end of the show, walking to fairy-inhabited Ravenna in her warm, geeky hat with kitty ears on top, and paints pictures of faraway castles and journeys of consequence.

I love you all and this beautiful world more than I can say.

I long to travel again. The open road is calling me. I have been considering grad school, but maybe the Real Writing happens out in the world, not in the ivory tower. Not through the credentials but through the adventures.

I've been considering applying for an English teaching abroad program. I am not sure how to go about it, because the research I've done in the past leads me to believe that JET is pretty much the only safe/sane way to go, but I don't feel any urge to return to Japan. Luckily, my dear friend Jenny is currently teaching abroad and planning to hop countries, so maybe I can pick her brain.

Yesterday was a beautiful day. A true Day Off. I haven't had one in ages. Even on this true Day Off, I had plans, of course, but they were good plans that I chose happily. I hopped the ferry and went to see Ryan, then came back to the city, attempted to use my Gene Juarez spa gift certificate but was foiled because they took a 4-day weekend, researched the tattoo I am thinking about (i.e. looked through artists' portfolios and decided, firmly, after meeting one artist, that this tattoo needs to be done by a WOMAN), bought the amazingly rare collision of cute *and* comfortable black flats (li'l non-leather mary janes...this is very exciting because I have been on a quest for cute vegan flats for over a year now), then ate at In The Bowl with Chris, whom I had not seen since last summer. I ordered a big ol' bowl of vermicelli noodles and didn't even care that I ate way too much of it. Yesterday was a day of ultimate self-respect, in which I chose to love and not punish or criticize myself. Then Chris and I sprawled out in the grass of Cal Anderson Park, watching the clouds and conversing about The Stupidity of the Dating Game and politics. Suddenly, our ears were filled with the sounds of Prop 8 protestors, and there appeared a string of marchers -- quite long -- coming around the corner of Broadway and up into the Park. We joined in, of course, and listened to people talk about the importance of civil rights and, of course, of justice in love. Also of note was a stop at Red Light to brainstorm for this Funk show coming up, along with a trip to Molly Moon's, the new ice cream joint everybody's all hot and bothered about, which smells amazing but tastes pretty average, if you ask me.

Then I did a test, which did not yield the results I would have liked, but which did yield the results that I expected. So it goes. Or, is that being defeatist? I suppose we answer these questions ourselves, based on how we truly feel. Our feelings are our guidance, and on that you can rely. I am learning to trust myself, bit by bit.

Yesterday was a beautiful day of self-respect. I decided to take back the power I have generously, even eagerly, handed out like cheap flowers to the masses for far too long. Oh, self-worth. Indeed, you are not a cheap flower. You are worth being treasured. Yesterday I made a promise to myself, to be stronger. In fact, I am getting stronger all the time, although sometimes you couldn't tell it from the outside looking in. Yesterday, because I was content in myself, I blessed the whole universe and fell in love with every blade of grass in that park.

Those moments when we realize that all the things upon which our haughty arrogance,
our confidence,
and our smugness hinges
are fallible, tenuous and fragile,
so fragile...

...we perhaps become
a little more real.

A little less puffed up, but a little more real. Those moments when we realize that, oh,
right,
That Thing we're pinning all our hopes and steroid-injected confidences on
might be a pipe dream after all,
the moments when that bucket of ice water reality hits,

yeah.

they remind us,
a little.

We are not infallible.

* * *

The new housemate put her clothes in my closet. IN MY CLOSET. What. Luckily, this is mostly irrelevant to me because in 12 days, I am moving out "for real." Yes. I secured housing in Ravenna, a little neighborhood near the U-District where there are lots of trees, blades of grass, and families, and not so many druggies or Ave rats. It's a quiet neighborhood, but within walking distance to The Night Life. Or at least the buses that lead to The Night Life.

Well, who am I kidding? It's pretty far outta the way. But less so than Edmonds, certainly, and when I say "walking distance," I mean "less than 30 minutes," and 30 minutes isn't such a bad trek. My thighs could use the exercise, anyway. Especially now that I've taken to showing them off on stage.

Rain + ouchie body still recovering from surgery + no groceries + housemates gone = call it an early night.

Well, I go in for my third (and hopefully final) egg donation retrieval today. Let's stock up on the Gatorade and coconut juice so as I don't get horrendously, horrendously ill again. Woohoo!

Also made $92 doing nude modeling the night before last. BANK! That's the most I've ever made.

Oh yes, and the $75 from burlesque is coming on Tuesday. Three acts at $25 apiece? I'll take it.

And these are the ways in which my hard-working body has earned me dough in the last few weeks. I'm very physical right now. I hope to spend the rest of the day zoned out on painkillers and watching anime.

Please do wish me luck. I have no time for getting sick, or really, for downtime. This girl does not like to stay down for long.

 Tonight, Ruby Sparks takes to the stage!

Act 1: Solo -- Sparkling Diamonds (Moulin Rouge! soundtrack)

Act 2: Solo -- Love You Much Better (The Hush Sound)

Act 3: Group number -- Falling in Love (is Hard on the Knees) (Aerosmith) 

Wish me luck! Or at least keep your fingers crossed that my pasties don't go flying off into the audience. 

 Fact: Have not heard back from apartment dude.

Conjecture: I am not getting this apartment.

Conjecture: Maybe it's just as well because

Fact: I do not do well alone.

Fact: However, I need some time alone because

Fact: I need to be writing and painting more than I currently am. Also

Fact: I need to rehearse my two solo acts for Friday's show, and 

Conjecture: I have not practiced enough because doing so requires me to be alone, and I have it as a Fact in my mind that I do not like to be alone.

Fact: I do not like to be alone.

Conjecture: Even though I am an introvert at the root of it all, and supposedly need time alone. I have it in my head that

Fact: I am anxious about performing, having the right attitude, displaying enough convincing chutzpah, "claiming" my character, so forth but

Conjecture: Because I am always with at least one other person,

Fact: I am performing all the time anyway.

Fact: I do not like to be alone. But

Fact: Sometimes you can only hear your own voice when it's the only one in the room. 

"Keep your weight over your own feet." That's what they said. I still need to write about that. That and that and that. "Keep your weight o'er your own two feet." 

Fact: I am always performing, anyway. 

last night I bruised
my wrist trying to put down
the toilet seat that my roommate had
left up
(how like a man)
I was a little drunk and a lotta clumsy
but it was my birthday dammit and 
I was in high spirits.

got a ton of work to do at work today but
you know what?
someone walked by this morning and said
"your workspace looks like a hippie den
no
a dancer's dressing room"
my heart leapt at those words because

yes!
I have a scarlet feather boa and a 
bow in my hair and three bouquets of 
flowers and a little bitty tomato plant
(aptly named Wilma) 
and a tight shiny plastic black dress that laces
up the front
scattered like leaves on the floor

and a bag of life-saving fertility drugs
because I am an artist
and artists don't make money
so we sell ourselves
we sell whatever they'll buy

I am the essence of bohemian flow

this bruise reminds me 
that in our flawedness
we are beautiful
in our fumbling we are divine
and in our clumsy drunk birthday state
we snatch little feather boas
from the hair of the goddess who laughs and 
whispers stage names and verses of 
poetry into our ears.

thank you Sherman Alexie
for reminding me to break from work
to work
on my soul

you are the man. 

 OMG...why are gigantic ostrich feather fans so expensive...how can I do the French maid fan dance number when I can't afford the bloody fans??

::cries::

 Lame...he's sick...okay, so maybe I won't go to the city for the first time in...let's see now...over two months. Lame!

Then again, gee, I am sick too. Maybe I should take this day to rest. Yeah...

IT'S HARD. 

Harder than salsa or blues, that's for sure. Certainly harder'n free-styling. Dammit! But I have to keep trying.

Oh me oh my, how strange and beautiful are these turns of life and twists of fate. 

Breakfast at Blackbird Bakery after an amazing night of my famous kale/carrot dish and chipotle portabella mushroom burgers that I conceived in my brain when I told my friends to pick a country upon whose cuisine we should base our main course, and they responded, "pan-Asian American Mexican!" Sam made the marinade, Kevin fired up the grill, and we imbibed plenty of nice white wine while the glorious hunks of mushroom soaked up the spice. A fire in the fireplace, the Beatles on the radio, and...an otter on the beach? (I kid you not.)

And the communication flowed. 

Good times. Odd. Peaceful. Exuberant. Yes, I am certainly living some kind of fantastic life. In which the Universe intercedes when it sees fit. Bless you back, Universe. 

Today, I feel full of some kind of warm and sumptuous blue and purple-indigo energy. That and Blackbird Bakery's multigrain toast with raspberry jam. Mm. 

Oh, Rent soundtrack. You make me get choked up at work. And I love you for it. 

:)

 I don't often wish I were psychic. I feel like knowing the outcome of a situation, or being able to read someone's mind, kind of ruins the fun of the present. 

But dammit this is one of the times I wish I were psychic! Gaaah!

* * *
Is anyone else a little grossed out by the Guantanamo questions that have been showing up on the LJ homepage lately? I know it's on account of the National Geographic special or whatever, but it seems a little out of line. Then again, maybe that's conservative of me. It's better to open up the dialogue than assume things, I guess. 

Love, peace, and healing to all the families and friends of all the lost souls in Italy. 

Congrats to the states who are legalizing gay marriage. That is encouraging. It's one of those causes I wish I could do more for. 

* * * 
I'm mulling over a pretty big entry, since a lot has transpired in the last two weeks, but so many other people are having such a hard time right now, I kind of don't feel like it. Those of you who are suffering, either physically, psychologically, emotionally or otherwise, please know I'm thinking of you.

One of the girls in my girls' group used to say, when it came time for her to check in, "I just feel like I don't need to repeat what I already know." I never understood that. Why wouldn't you want to talk about what's going on inside you? And Lord knows I have a lot going on. It's just that I'm very aware of all of it. And like I said, I want to support others right now, not draw attention to myself. 

It's just an odd time. Odd but good. New and good. 

Good. 

...I love my life.

I think I mighta pulled a muscle in my leg, or at least messed it up.

But the good news is, I mighta pulled a muscle in my leg while having the time of my freakin' vida dancing on stage in a cabaret, so I am pleased nonetheless.

What a bloody good time..!

 First of all, my heart goes out to Liam and his boys, who have just lost their beautiful Natasha. So sad. :(

* * *

Things are quiet at the office today. I finally had a few days to rest...I mean, I've been either at Yes or at Yazdi (how did I end up at two jobs that start with a Y?) every day for the past six weeks, but I finally had a few evenings to rest. It's been go go go since I returned to the magazine, with literally every day filled with *something* from dawn until dusk, so these free evenings were very welcome indeed. On Saint Patty's Day, we interns went over to Jess' place and drank green beer (for the first time ever, for me!) and ate potatoes, cabbage, and carrots. So very Irish! And last night, we went to see the new environmental documentary, "Fuel," which I have happily been asked to review for Worldchanging, an awesome online magazine at which my dear friend Sarah works. Then we went home, and Colette and I made spaghetti and a tremendously yummy salad, and sat around in the common space of the house talking about boys, romance, complications, parents, the recession, and whatever else crossed our minds...

She went to take a phone call, and I was able to just lounge a little on the couch, that old ratty brown one, listening to the soft croons of her iPod and reminiscing. I haven't been spending nearly enough time in the common space. So much happened there. I became so spiritually awakened, there. So many nights I came out and slept on the couch, as an expression of rejection of the dysfunction that took place in my bedroom. I slept on the couch on the nights I was sick of being myself. My little vacation spot. 

There above the boarded-up fireplace is my dragon mask. I was a dragon, for "Wild Things," because I felt like something sleek and hard on the outside, but with all this latent fire within. In my act, I released that fire. And now I look at all the things that have happened since then -- that started that very month! -- and I look at my icon, and all of my crimson red clothes, and I am happy to say I am dancing in the fire. I have come into my own fire.

Tomorrow I interview for an Americorps position with a group in Evanston, IL that provides counseling services to victims of sexual assault. I really want to work for them. Please keep your fingers crossed for me, and send me some good mojo. If I get it, I will be covered for the next year, I will be able to fulfill my dream of "being on the front lines of the Obama call," and most importantly -- MOST importantly -- I will be able to put myself to use for a very worthy cause. Please do wish me luck. 

Sometimes change happens quickly, and sometimes it happens gradually. I have felt a change since I've come back here, and in spite of all my ego's efforts, it's been a good one. No, I didn't just "pop right back in and pick up where I left off..." of course not! It took three weeks for me to open my heart again. I told Josh, "I feel like a tooth." 
"You feel like a tooth??"
"I feel like a tooth that was covered in plaque. All the time I was at the UW, and even for the month following graduation, I was fighting something. I've been in the fighting mindset for nearly a year and a half. I got kind of hard. I got used to defending myself on multiple fronts, and not letting my guard down. I came back to Yes, and I didn't WANT to eat lunch with everyone. I stayed at my desk and ate alone, because I was not in synch with that happy, warm energy they exude, so I pulled away from it. I didn't WANT to joke around or tease or play. I hardly smiled and I was all about business. I thought, 'it was a mistake to come here; I'm just here because I failed to get into the Peace Corps. This is so dumb.' But that plaque has been slowly, slowly scraped away, bit by bit, and I'm starting to open up my heart again."

"This is a place of healing."
"People come here for a reason."
I said these things. I said them to interns who came, after I had been here for a while. People come here for a reason, to change, to be healed, to reach epiphany. That was my own tried and true advice! No one comes here, to this place, and is not changed. It's like magic. So although I clenched my fists and told myself I'd just "get through this embarrassing situation" and move on, here I am being changed again. This is truly a place of healing. Of opening. All of a sudden, all those petitions and "call your senator" e-mails I get mean something again. I click them and sign them -- not just the ones that grab my attention, but as many as I can. Because they are all important. Yesterday I read that there's a new video game out in which the goal is to rape women. Not only was I horrified, I was outraged. I felt that passionate energy to DO something again. Last night, watching "Fuel," I was actually moved to tears once again over the beauty and tragedy and enduring beauty of this human condition. It felt so good to cry. For something bigger than my own problems. It reminded me of what I hope I can call "the true nature of my heart." 

Today, I bought Doug some pistachios, like in the old days. He called me the pistachio fairy, and I smiled. I resisted the urge to buy pre-made sushi for lunch, because it comes in that non-recyclable plastic that I KNOW goes straight into the landfill and never biodegrades. And I am not more important than the Earth. I resisted it also because I felt like sushi, yes, but I have plenty of food here that will likely spoil if I don't eat it, and waste is never a good thing. This is getting me back to my values. Voluntary simplicity. The real stuff. The good stuff. The not-advertised-on-TV-but-what-really-matters stuff. This is reminding me that I don't just want to farm because it sounds like fun and it'll get me out of the country. I want to farm because I love the Earth. And I don't just want to do Americorps because the idea makes me feel good. I want to do it because perhaps, in some small way, I can do something that will genuinely help others.

This is the voice of the plaque-relieved tooth. Of revived idealism. How I thought I could come here and not be changed, I don't know. But I am relieved that I am once again feeling like the girl with the shredded skirt and the purple pigtails who left here two autumns ago, while still maintaining the confidence, maturity, and sense of self-worth that I have acquired over the past year. 

Some criticize Bainbridge for being an isolated little bubble of utopia that is out of touch with the real world. Maybe that's true, in some ways, but places like this need to exist. They need to exist for us to drink from. They need to exist so that we can remember what we're aiming for. Yes.