Little Pools, Little Endings

Have you ever wondered what kind of person you are? I, naturally, indulge in these thoughts far too often, usually while Joni Mitchell or Patti Griifin are pumping their lovely melodies in my candlelit room. One thing that travel does, is it smacks you right into who you are. Not only are you identified by country, "Oh, hey, it's that Aussie guy!" but you also are defined by how adventurous you are. Now, H and I certainly aren't wild, by any means. Yes, we both have a propensity for traipsing around third world countries, but we don't exactly sleep on the streets or take body shots off of the locals' small hairless chests or anything. It's funny, because in my family, I am known as the 'wanderer.' I love this title. I sometimes slip on the title, zip it right up to my neck, after I've had a long stretch of staying in the US too long and I can't stand seeing another strip mall or piece of bleached Wonderbread. I just inhale and think, this isn't my life all the time....I am adventurous....right? Even though, on a normal day in Austin, me being adventurous consists of sneaking outside during my lunch break to peak at actual sunlight.

Well, as Guatemala showed H and I, we aren't the most adventurous pups out there. People say that, "The more you travel, the more you realize you don't know shit and you ain't seen shit". This could not be more true. Not only was everyone we met on our trip gone for four months or more, touching Mexico all the way to Cape Horn in the South of Chile and Argentina, but they were staying in seedier places and practically drinking the tap water (well, not quite, cause they would be peeing out of their asses, but I could tell they wanted to). While I am still covered in mysterious bug bites, varying in size and swollen, mound-like shapes, H and I did not slum it. We did stay in dorm rooms but we also got private rooms. We also had a lot of fruit smoothies and french fries. We even stayed at an eco-friendly hotel on Lago de Aititlan, an absolutely gorgeous mountain lake surrounded by volcanoes.  The hotel was fairly obnoxious, where people glare at you checking Facebook on the ten year old computer in the living room because, ahem, you are supposed to be free of technology. Of course, these same people have IPads in their rooms, but whatever. This hotel was super chic and, may I say, the outdoor bathroom had the best view of any toilet I've plopped down on. It made the early morning scramble and grumble across a ledge well-worth it when you get to pee and watch the sunrise over the water.

Somehow, though, I swear all these travelers had nicer clothes than us. H brought a couple pairs of brown shorts and shirts, and I naturally had some hippy dresses I adorned, but other than that we were kinda gross and couldn't imagine it being any other way. But some people, these alleged 'more adventurous travelers' had polo shirts and tight skirts that clung to their hips, more ready for a handsy salsa experience than trekking through poorly laid cobblestoned streets. Speaking of cobblestones, H ate shit pretty hard our first day in Antigua and I am ashamed to say I laughed, like the kind where I nearly peed my pants....

My first encounter with questioning what type of person I was came when H and I were sitting in the Plaza Central in Antigua. The Plaza is lovely with trees everywhere, a fairly pornographic fountain where water flows from breasts, and surrounding cobblestones. It is downright European looking except for the height of the natives and bountiful colors of necklaces and blankets being thrust at your pale face everywhere you go. Well, as we were sitting on an ancient bench, a lovely old Guatemalan mans comes and sits down next to us, rattling off in Spanish. I am craning my neck to hear, trying not to translate every word and just let it all wash over me, when I hear him ask how I like the cathedrals. I respond that I love them, but why is there not holy water available when you walk in? Well, this excites him because I have revealed that I have some Catholic in me. Well, let me tell you, if the quantity of my Catholic background were in the form of clothing, I would still appear naked to most people. But to him, the floodgates for Jesus-talk had opened. He quickly told me about Semana Santa, the harrowing voyage Jesus made through the desert, and ended with insisting that he show us some churches not on the main drag the next day. I smiled and agreed, while H sat next to me, looking concerned that perhaps her naive travel companion had just sold us into white slavery. She expressed concern the next morning, minutes before our planned meeting with the old man, that, perhaps we should not go because we could indeed be kidnapped. I thought about this, swirled it around in my mouth for a minute, then eventually spat it out, wanting to be the kind of person that certainly meets a local and spends the day being showed the city! In reality, I was patting my little blond head, cursing myself for insisting on more bleached highlights before we left, knowing now they might as well be flashing white light in a brown sea, guiding robbers to my purse. No matter, we met the little man, towering over him in our boots, and walked with him for the morning, seeing a hospital, two churches and ruins so beautiful, H and I naturally were convinced they would be the perfect setting for an American horror movie where two precious American girls follow a stranger to the outskirts of town before getting pulled into one of the many 'cryptos' where we are tortured on the hour......But no, this was not our fate, and H was quite vigilant in assessing each van that passed, knowing that could be the one that pulled us in and then scalped my messy blond curls. Unfortunately, our little old tour guide took a liking to touching me and by the end, he had kissed my cheeks so many times things were getting downright awkward. H and him had a standoff at the end, her not wanting any pecks (rightfully so, I mean, we're 'merican) until finally it just happened. After he left, 100 Q richer, we both smiled at each other, glad that we were in fact the people that trust the locals, and see intimate parts of the city.

The next time I really thought about who I was was at the end of our trip, fast forward to northern Guatemala, a 13-hour bus ride filled with guys all over 6 feet tall and H and I squished among them. Finally, at 10:30 PM we arrive at Zephyr Lodge in Lanquin. This lodge is housed on a hilltop in the mountains, feeling like you are in a treehouse that is pleasantly stocked with alcohol, pancakes and Nutella. We signed up to see Semuc Champay, the magical turquoise pools and caves that were apparently going to blow our minds. Let me tell you, this trip was the most bad-ass I have ever been in my life.

We started with a bumpy hour drive that left me feeling nearly violated, and clammered into a covered space where we were told to take our clothes off, and our shoes, wearing just our suits. Then, we had to walk up stone steps where we met the cave opening. Immediately, you are getting into brown water that creeps up to your ribs. Now, I don't think I'm irrational or anything, but who isn't thinking WHAT THE FUCK LIVES IN HERE? Apparently, only I was thinking this, because I was clutching H's back like a freaking cat-post, squealing and then forcing an over-smiley French guy to stay behind me so I wasn't the last one in the cave. We were each given one stubby little candle and basically left to the mercy of a tour guide we didn't even the name of. Inside that cave, which quickly turned pitch black but for our little line of wicks and flame, you could hear the squeaking of bats and thrashing of water. Next, we swam, yes swam, in a very pathetic doggie paddle fashion, as the ground disappeared, our candles barely above the water with one arm, not knowing how long it would go on. In parts, you had a rope only to keep you from falling victim the the viscous current tearing at your ribcage and trying to convince you to go into the rapids ahead. Then, after doing some climbing on slippery surfaces and H having to very calmly say, "Maybe move your hand, Kristen" as a huge spider casually walked next to my thumb, we came on a waterfall whose ferocity rivaled Zeus's anger. I quickly realized that yes, we would have to walk through this waterfall. The worst part was, other than no light and a cacophony of water noises, you could not see the survivors ahead of you, they just disappeared one at a time with the Guatemalan guide, never to be seen again. When it was my turn, I was shaking, and before I knew it, his arms were around my slippery and bare mid-section and I couldn't breathe from the gushing water plowing my body, and then, we did a little jump, yes a jump, just me, a rope and his arms. When he deposited me on the other side, the water was still so intense I couldn't see, but luckily two white saviors, one Scottish guy the other English, pulled me as though I were a baby being pulled from a waling mother's private bits while giving birth, and I am sure I flashed them as I tried desperately to pull my bathing suit bottoms (purchased three years ago in Thailand, so already janky as hell). Luckily, both were too polite and denied every seeing my white bottom at all. The last part, and at this point the adrenaline had practically started making me foam at the mouth, we had to crawl on our backs under a rock so low I earned serious limbo points, and there our guide pushed us donw a rockslide into a dark pool of water below, how deep you ask? No one knows. So I closed my eyes, and was flung down, all the while picturing my mom screaming at me asking, "ARE YOU INSANE?" And when we emerged into the world, the light hurting our washed out eyes, it was like we had all survived Vietnam together.

So it stopped there, right? Get real! Next, we came to a bridge where little kids were trying to sell as chocolate circles and I was thinking wow, I have never felt so naked. And there was the bridge, my Everest. I had jumped off a tree the day before when we went tubing, and been proud that I had done it, though of course I was trying for nonchalance. But this, it was close to a 30' drop and the current was strong. Balls. I watched as the people in our group plunged their bodies into the water, one by one. H had said she wouldn't, so it was down to me and the Israeli guy. He was as afraid of heights as me, meaning that most of nightmares involve me falling and waking up gasping for solid surfaces. I swear some commercials give me vertigo. But, I wanted to be a person who DID jump off bridges. I already had gone through the scariest freakin cave and survived, and I decided, fuck it, if I want to be that person I have to just do it. I still feel butterflies just writing about the jump, because the free-fall feels like you absolutely will meet your death, and your throat is high-fiving the bottom of your feet and your stomach has crept up to your scalp and holy shit, it was so scary. But I DID it and then I realized maybe I am that person, if I want to be.

So later, after a beautiful if not rigorous as shit hike to the vantage point of the magical pools, where I had chatted with the tour guide, Carlos, I was feeling amazing. When we reached the pools, and I was floating on my back in the turquoise bliss cascading from one pool to the next, I almost got caught up enough in the surroundings to think I was worthy of a brush stoke or two, with oils.

The trip ended, after H scissoring me (yes, I used that phrase) as she fell down a rock slide and took me down from a standing position to flat on my ass, (not to mention more jumping and terrifying pushes by Carlos) and then being told there was "Un mas cueva." Oh, wow. I turned to the others and said, "He says there is one more cave." They all looked at me like, crap, this day never ends. The last cave was terrifying. By terrifying I mean that of course I said, "Hell no, there is no way I'm doing this," before actually doing it. You had to pop your head in between little breathing pockets, the water up to your neck because you're swimming, an inch or two of air between you and death. Luckily, Carlos saw the panic in my face and H's because he accompanied us as closely as a horny male prom date when the music ends, and when I panicked before the underwater part, he smiled and told me "Tu puedes, Christina!" In English, it means "you can do this".  As I brought me head up, hoping it would meet open sky and air, I realized I did do it.

As our whole group limped, all patched of blooming blue and purple on our bodies, their was a giddiness that comes with overcoming something so intense and awesome that your confidence is pretty high (well, not that you look good, because frankly I was pretty sure I looked like shit, but no matter). After Carlos asked me to stay in Guatemala (my 3rd and final marriage proposal on our trip-I need to not be so smiley and chatty in Spanish in the future), and I told him no, I loved America and my life there, I realized that even more importantly than my geographic locality, I loved who I was. Even if my leg hair was longer than it possible ever had been and H and I didn't have dreadlocks or tattoos with obscure song lyrics, we had had an incredible trip and though she doesn't like hugs, I still wanted to squeeze her and squeal, "Can you believe what we just did?!"

So there it is, a snippet really, but I just had to document at least a sliver of our time in Guatemala. A trip which I will pretend did not end with our driver abandoning us on a strange street in Guatemala City where someone through a firecracker at us (which of course sounds like gunshots) because frankly, we had an amazing trip, and there is nothing wrong with me being happy as hell that I can put toilet paper in the toilet instead of a trash bin. Amen!

Oh What These Trees Have Seen

Well, I have left Austin for most of the summer. I said goodbye after a night of delightful belting to Asian karaoke with friends and H once again piled me into her little car as we headed to the airport. When I arrived, it was 78 degrees. I flew into San Francisco first, watching as the city stumbled over itself in architecture, and then an hour later I was leaving it, nostalgically sighing as the Golden Gate turned into a little red line as I moved North. When I landed in Chico, my family was there waiting. Even my father had worn his bright orange UT shirt I had given him as a gift, claiming that he 'just grabbed something randomly' when in fact my mother told me later that he had searched for it to adorn my arrival. And, sigh, I was home.

After just a few days in Chico, seeing old friends, watching Barbara Streisand movies with my mom, and eating dirty burritos, I prepared for a road trip with, gasp, my parents. I know most people may not choose to go on a five-day hiking trip with their parents, but you just haven't met mine. Yes, they tell the same jokes, buy terrible touristy shirts and like Subway too much, but they are pretty awesome. As a matter of fact, we are kind of a unit now, after years of it being us three (my sister at college or in CO), we just know how to function. I just sort of bop between my parents, hiking and talking geography/history/politics etc with my dad, while I gush about life, love and books with my mom (this also includes watching really embarrassing to admit movies, such as Flicka 3-as though two weren't enough!).

After a five hour drive we finally arrived at Yosemite. Our first day I coerced my mom into hiking with us a little bit, which she did until it got hot and steep, and my father and I trekked on. At the end of our hike we saw a lovely waterfall that surged into Hatch Hechy, which I learned later is San Francisco's drinking water, so lucky you, city folk. An interesting thing about this hike was that we ran across a group of-I could spot immediately-middle-school kids. Immediately, I thought of my kiddos. Where are they? Is someone watching them? Are they READING? And we found out they were from the city. I wondered how many of my students had ever gone somewhere where nature prevailed in that indomitable way. I also wondered how you could ever really know how big life is if it has never revealed it's vastness to you. Yes, a building can put you in awe from it's grand shadow, but a canyon, a waterfall, a mountain-those are the edifices that make everything in you still until your soul finally can creep out of slumber and into grace.

Day two was a bit more eventful. After driving an endlessly winding road to get up to Yosemite from our hotel (apparently only the wealthy can stay in lodges near the park-I mean we're talking 400 bucks a night at some of these places) we arrived at the highest point of the park: Glacier Point. My dad had vigorously highlighted dream routes for us to take and finally had settled on this "Rated 10, that rarely happens" hike that was listed as 'Moderate' and just over 10 miles. OK, I thought, we had done more than that before, and my dad told me it would be all down hill-Easy as pie, right?

After my mom snapped some photos (excuse my Facebook uploads, please) of us in our clean hiking outfits, we left her with the car and a free afternoon reading in the valley as we began our hike with plenty of water but NO lunch. All was whimsical at first, with accents from foreign hikers humming around us like little birds, but with more awkward khaki accessories, and we had found a lovely waterfall about two miles in. There was little uphill as we kept walking, reminiscing on past travels abroad and strange interactions with locals. We even came across a pair of Czech guys who I nearly bat my sweaty eyelashes and clucked at as they hiked by us, old jumbled Slavic phrases sticking to my tongue. And then......the uphill......and the downhill. The sun was beating down on my perpetually pale skin, we had not packed lunch and it was past one, we still had thousands of feet down to the valley (our destination) and here we were going UP all of those miles we had gone DOWN! Well, my adorable hiking euphoria had worn off and I was, to be fragile, a bit 'testy'. I was getting shaky and my legs were tired. My poor dad had sweated through his shirt and I wondered why we are so disturbed as to torture ourselves like we were. And then, the steepness flattened, I could taste my own salty sweat (probably could pluck the salt crystals off and put them in a shaker) and there was an incredible waterfall. You would think, after all those waterfalls, you'd become indifferent, but each one is so uniquely beautiful that you forget the others instantly. OK, to make a long story short, the hike took over five hours, my fathers toes bled through his socks, we were limping and I ate a huge salmon burger at the end. And in retrospect, I can almost think "oh that was a nice hike, not too tough...."


Oh yes, the trees, oh how I get sidetracked! OK, so moving on to Sequoia National Park-Day 4. So, my dad and I are nearly incapacitated from all the downhill. So much so, that my dad, hiking OBSESSED table for one, missed out on a panorama hike with the best views of Yosemite yet (again, see Facebook for said photos and ignore my disgrace at being a Facebook slut this past week). He sat in the hotel on Day 3while my mom and I had this great bonding experience where she hated/loved me as I forced her on a hike that she totally rocked (literally).

 So.....picture these trees, not dense like most conifers, but instead they are sprinkled around completely dominating whatever patch they're in. The giant sequoia. If you want to feel insignificant, try and wrap your arms around the rustic red trunk of one of those trees. They are millions of years old, some of them, and they are resilient to both fire and insects. If we want to talk evolutionary lottery, we might as well cue up the DING DING right now. Nothing can kill these, as we saw on our 'Stump Hike' where a chainsaw made a poor attempt at slicing through one. it carved what looked like a smile (I tried not to think of the Joker but it was tough) into the trunk, and it looked like one of the healthiest trees there. Even if you did have the machinery to destroy one of these ancient beauties because, well, maybe you don't have a soul and like beating grandmothers or something, you can't even use the wood because it splinters instantly. HAH! And the funniest part of the day? When my mom says, "I don't really like trees that much" when we are THERE in the most MAGICAL tree forest in the WORLD and she just smiles out the window, mildly unimpressed. I would wonder how we were related, except for she had already begun daydreaming at that point, and then it was undeniably confirmed that my love of nature from my dad is in me as equally as the dreamer inside of my mom, and while they aren't compatible in two separate people all the time, they are forced to play nicely when they live inside of me :) Perhaps someone just like me made up fairies, too....seems about right. 

So if I could be a tree, I would be YOU Sequoia. You are incredible, wise and can not be torn down by earthly powers. It is only when you wish, when you tire, that you fall. And oh, how the forest laments you when you do.

And then, there is other beauty too, that makes you feel small. My dad, notoriously unromantic, tells me (after definite prodding, for sure) that he knows mom 'is the one' and he has always known. To hear that, after spending a bit too much time in tiny, 'the smell lingers',  quarters with them, I felt small. I'm not talking about the bad small, just the small that reminds me I know so little of love. These two, going on 30+ years, are still best friends. They know each other in a way I know no one has ever known me. And in some ways they are that rare Sequoia, so rare in a forest of easily broken and destroyed trees that barely make it through the winter, where as they simply keep growing, more incredible and majestic with each season. There are so few like them, but perhaps that is what makes people stop with their cameras and IPhone Instagram to celebrate them. I know I like to.

Gracias for your patience with that tree analogy, I just couldn't NOT do it, ya know? Anyhow, still in Chico and still riding the same purple cruiser from high school. More later, from my little hometown summer stint :) And, a teaser for weeks to follow, picture H and I sweating through Guatemala....pretty tantalizing image right??!

The Bluebonnet that Grew from Concrete

This time last year, Austin was suffocating in 90 degree temperatures + humidity and all the bluebonnets that once had dreams of breaking through soil, were trampled by the beginnings of one of the most intense heat waves in Texas since the early 1900's. Sadly, no families did the cliched trample across the meadow, clad in kaki pants and white Polo shirts, because there were no state treasures blossoming around Texas (and if there were, I couldn't find them). My parents came and went on Easter, remembering only the feel of sweat down one's back that feels more like a mobile spider on your spine than anything else. Instead of a magical hike in Emma Long Park, my dad and I trudged through an almost palpable curtain of thick, humid air, both of us bitching about lack of water and squinting to try and find anything remotely alive around us.

This year, however, the forecast is much more favorable and the flowers, from all the recent rain, are absolutely electrifying around Hill Country. The most interesting arrays, to me, are the ones that pop up between highway lanes, as though mocking modern industry in their blatant blandness and refusing to let them prevail. Instead, the flowers culminate in every spare corner, using the grayness of the road as but a mere template, like a white wall, in which to splatter their colors upon.

My kids and I (ahem...students) studied a Tupac poem back in November called, "The Rose that Grew from Concrete." I was thrilled when, after only slight provoking, the students understood the symbolism of the rose being Tupac the artist, and the concrete as his tumultuous childhood and past. I was even more thrilled when my students remembered this poem, and it's overall meaning, last week when I had them connect that poem to the book I read a passage out of called Before Tupac and D Foster (I can't find the underline button, so please forgive the book title not being underlined). If there is one common theme that brings students together, it's struggle, and from that common theme I hope they see another: redemption.

One of my students, we can call her I, has lived apart from her parents (who are in Mexico) for almost two years now. She came here to learn English, and so she has, and over the two years, and the divine pleasure of teaching this young girl, I have watched an impossibly emotional situation filled with loneliness and linguistic isolation turn into one that is triumphant. She did not hop a bus home after an entire school day throwing a foreign language at her, or crying at home over homework she couldn't understand and birthdays come and gone in Mexico she'd missed. She stayed, and rose above, and now I has a confidence that two years ago seemed light years away. (And of course this student, I, has had some less adorable teenage moments, especially with eye rolls that need no translation at all, for they are a worldwide F*#$ you, but hey, she is thirteen after all, and I can be a bit pushy.)

Last week, I watched as she laughed at a joke the AP told her (in English), the same AP whose mere presence and voice once made her scurry behind me, almost pulling my dress down to hide beneath it, like a little toddler.

The beauty of redemption is that there is always a chance to change and be better. Let's look at Stanley Tookie Willims III, who was born and raised in SouthCentral LA. He was the co-founder of one of the most infamous gangs of all time, the Crips. After being convicted of murder four times, he finally begain to seek redemption. While in jail, Williams wrote numerous anti-gang books and pieces of literature geared for kids and repeatedly admitted to making bad choices in his past. Now, does his story end well? Unfortunately, not as well as we'd like. Arnold Shwartzanegger did not let the obvious 'change of heart' of Williams affect what was imminent, his execution. Now, don't be angry with me for not giving you a happy ending (truly, I apologize!) because Williams did get his redemption, in my opinion. He forced the connotations from his name to be switched from one of the worst proponents of violence and gang authority to one that now helps teach kids the bloody reality of such a lifestyle. He gained the atonement, if not from his state, at least from himself. He was part of one of the most important processes of the human spirit: transformation.

Let's just say, I may or may not have just ordered his book for some of my more gang-interested 7th grade boys......

So why is it that we want to rise from something? Why not stay down, low to the floor, and look at that concrete and think, well, at least it doesn't get dirt under my nails....

I don't think there is an actual answer to this. I think it should, and will, remain one of the must delicious secrets of humankind (second only to the hiccups). Why is it that most of us have an internal arrow trying desperately to point north, toward Heaven or whatever place of sanctuary and self-actualization we can think of? I want to believe it is more than indoctrination from a society that tells us what is good or what is right, because my little nephew, who doesn't grasp the English language yet, knows that being hugged is good, and that laughter is divine, without being told that by society.

And again, to regress to my obsession with non-verbal communication, I will tell you the brief story of last Thursday......

I had taken three of my ESL girls to see the Hunger Games, one of which was I, (mentioned earlier) who read the book in Spanish (since her reading level is at about 2nd grade). Well, when I's grandmother came to pick her up, she insisted on getting out of her car. I watched as she slowly walked toward me, her face carved upon by years of life and laughter, and she came right up to me, tears in her eyes, and hugged me tightly. Not one of those gentle hugs, but a hug that says, I want to hold you and tell you something with my grip, because this is what it means to not let go. While there were brief words exchanged in Spanish, we were both silent while she held my face with her small wrinkled hands, both of our eyes on the verge of flooding. She reminded that loving and sharing and believing are the signposts that guide us, that make us want to be better, and that this process never should stop, even when you are 78 and raising teenagers. I know that whoever hammered those relentless signposts within me is responsible for everything I have tried to do and be in my life.

Even though the bluebonnets couldn't rise last year, they still lived, even suffocated and shrunken they waited beneath the earth for the next spring, when the rain would come, because it always does, and then they resurrected, more beautiful and plentiful than ever. I suppose we should all hope to reach such profound redemptive beauty. After all, it's Spring guys, and all that poetic crap is a cliche around this time of year for a reason....because those flowers can teach us something after all.

Music, while it speaks for you: SXSW Part One

Here I am, hosting what just may be the most gifted, beautifully talented female band on this tumultuous planet. There are clothes all over the room, food scattered around the house, and more towels that have been flopped on doors than I've ever seen before, but let me tell you, when your house is full of love, you don't try and poison such things with, "Did someone take my boots?"

I guess what I like most is seeing these people, who somehow have traveled thousands of miles and yet to me, have just appeared simply upon my doorstep, who are from another life of mine. They fumbled out of J's van at around 2:30 am with striped faces bent from sleep and endless reusable water bottles but they were, to me, the vestiges of home, that have been carefully plucked and placed on my doorstep like fresh, boisterous flowers. Last night, those flowers sang, unabashed and overflowing with sisterly silliness in a way that makes people want to just ask, "How have you created such a family?"

I like to pretend I'm a part of this. I know that J and E do too, as they sat in that room with me last night, playing a rock and a stick, anything to chime in with those three (I even played a Klean Kanteen, which could really not be MORE Chico if it tried). I am reading an entire book about the "Being Part of This" phenomenon. A priest, living in the most gang scarred part of L.A. and thus the world, who is letting the most horrifically nurtured people finally feel like they are family. This priest rides his meager little bike up and down the most dangerous streets in our country like a delivery boy, but when he reaches in his basket there are no newspapers, only his aging, patient hands that finally open up, bare to the people living there, welcoming them to join in this love thing.

I love to hear stories of change. I love hearing that, people are not born terrible, though they may do terrible things. I like to hear that some people are so strong that they can kiss you after you murder someone they love, instead of scraping your limbs off. I like to talk of these things, this book, this world, with the Knight sisters and J and E, because when you say your thoughts out loud they sort of expand, and rise higher in the sky, as though they have dreams of their own to see something else just above that cloud. And sometimes, I can sit with these people and say nothing, because the music is speaking to us, sometimes whispering and sometimes chanting all the palpitations of your confusion and lust to the point that you feel undeniably satiated when that last instrument is put down to rest.

Sometimes I do get a little jealous of the music, though. It must be something most divine to play really, truly well, or to open your mouth and sound like some kind of creature best suited for beautiful island cliffs. Now, don't get me wrong, I like the solitude of writing, truly yearn and savor each quiet spec of time that is bequeathed me from wherever it is peace comes from, but sometimes I see people perform and glow and it makes me sad that I can never see how people are affected by my written words. Even, on the rare occurrence that I do touch someone, I miss their face, they little sound that escapes their mouth, and I do think it would be nice to share in that exchange with people, in my way of trade.

On that note, I intend to hear more music in my house tonight, as a matter of fact the band is set to return here from the store filled with all the makings of the perfect white-person-imitation Mexican feast that is sure to be incredible. And, of course, the wine will be opened and flung in the air with an overzealous toast that will inevitably remind us that we are young and life is, indeed, happening and singing with us, all the time.

More on SXSW later!

What Love Has To Do With It

So, here comes that day again, where everything is covered in blood red and bubble-gum pink and you are just trying to buy a pair of socks and the only thing available has little hearts or a fat baby cupid on them....and oh God, it must be Valentine's Day.

This time last year, I had just broken up with a guy, N, that I had dated way too long for anyway, but it just sort of kept happening. He bothered me with his pompous guitar playing and when he gave me a burned CD, (silly me, thinking they were songs from his favorite bands) I quickly realized it was all him....playing the electric guitar with an alarming amount of vigor. N always had grease in his fingernails, from being a mechanic, and wore too tight of pants. He really was a nice guy, but other than having a shared love for Mumford and the Avett Brothers, I wasn't sure what else there was to talk about.

I suppose breaking up with N ranked somewhere on my list of: Send grandma a big-ass Valentine's card, buy peanut butter for survival, schedule hair appt., break up with N.......

Does this make me sound mean? I hope not. But, let's be honest, unless someone is really blowing my socks off it's just not that worth having my precious time yanked from my palms. Not that the initial games and intrigue aren't enticing, because of course they are, but eventually, moving so many pieces start to make my hands hurt and I just want to go home.

Last weekend, I went out to Nasty's, Austin's best hole-in-the-wall bar ever, with some of my favorite people in this city. We drank great beer and played egregious pool and all the other great activities one expects from a wildly adorable sitcom about twenty-somethings. In this event, A, a good guy friend, was asking about my love life. I have grown use to this being a topic of high interest to those that are strictly monogamous and 'tied down'. I suppose one could even find humor in the, who is Kristen dating NOW? game, depending on the phase in my life. After telling A all of my male woes and raves he looked at me and said, "But wouldn't you rather be single than just date someone not great?" Well geez. When you put it like that, DUH, and of course that is totally true. After all, I am quite content doing things alone, more than most I fear, and thus I am not as wildly overcome with despair when men come in and out and prove to be disappointing (which, to date, that has been all of them, not that I'm counting or anything...). A smiled, perhaps because he was feeling better that I wasn't dating just because I had nothing better to do, and was calming his own darling fears that I would settle and then spend my forties staring out a glass window at an overly manicured garden or something. He gave me a nice pat and the back and I too felt reassured, having verbalized that I indeed would not let mediocre male behavior fly, and we continued to drown another pint.

The truth is, there is a lot of love happening in my life. Why, let me tell you, my students continue to surprise me with their warmth and the way they divulge precious information like beautiful little sand dollars that have taken so many years to be created and revealed by the ocean. I look forward to little hugs in the hallway, their happy faces when they get answers right, and the way those feisty little detention boys hover around my room when I'm not even their teacher! Lucky me! And, can I just say, seeing my 8th grade boys choose Tupac poems about loving unconditionally, was enough to make me literally make a cooing noise, then abruptly have to do a sort of cough-clearing-of-throat cover up. But truly, my work allows for me to feel alarmingly loved, and let me tell you, the feeling is mutual. Plus, let's be honest, there isn't a cuter pair of nephews than my little boys in Colorado. If there is anything I thank Apple for, it's letting me FaceTime with my babies in Denver, and for letting me see the newest train track Carter has set up, and the way Weston rests his soft head on my sister's chest, with those big pink cheeks and long eyelashes like his father. Why, just last week, Carter proudly snatched me (well, the me inside the phone screen) and dragged me to the impressive stack of snow outside their house, yelling, "Tia, snow, snow!"

I suppose sometimes, it is normal to think, at 25, that you just have rotten luck, or that you pick bad male specimens, but I think that is mostly narcissistic to think you're the only one with such odds. I mean, seriously, is there anyone in NYC under 30 and in a serious relationship? Could Katherine Heigl and Mandy Moore have careers if there weren't so many single women with dating battle wounds lining their hearts? Certainly not. I mean, I am a product of a father who treats me with respect and as an intellectual equal, and a mother who, verbatim, told me, upon telling her I was dating two guys at the same time, "Kristen, don't make any commitments, you've only been going out with them a month! Have fun!"

I do like fun, and I am young (though I feel old after controlling teenagers all day), and I like the idea that I am still free to do all the little delicious things that make me happy. I can head up a book club, do happy hour every Friday, go to coffee shops on weekends, start a boot camp, go to writing meetups, take up sewing, watch hours slip away at Book People, and leave the country for a month without blinking. Yes, I suppose eventually these things will be eclipsed by a relationship, perhaps even a small-town life that will frighten me at times, but overall I think that there is a lot of love around me, floating and bobbing like little balloons with fat inflated heads, reminding me that it's alright to be just where I am in life. Love isn't meant to be categorized, as we tend to do, always ranking romantic relationships as number one. For I know it to be divinely true that, when my students hug or thank me, when my mother tears up about how much she misses me, or my best friends back home remind me of our past adventures together, I don't think of men at all, I just think of how damn lucky I am to have any of that love stuff at all.

And I can not end this without telling you of the most important, yet most difficult love of all: the love you have for yourself. Now, I know this is starting to sound like a quote from The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants or something, but it's true. So many people don't really know or love themselves, but instead absorb and deflect the love from others. I feel grateful that at 25, I at least know myself, though there are new discoveries all the time, like the fact that I literally do squeal and jump into H's lap at scary movies, but overall, I am content with who I have become and I could certainly look in the mirror in some kind of video montage and tell myself, "Hey you, I kinda love ya."


So, in case you hate Valentine's Day, try not to, because it's a bit cliche to do that and also, you are way too loved to have a right to hate anything, don't you think?

Where Will You Place That Cap?

As the New Year begins, I find myself making my inevitable list of everything I wish to conquer, achieve, and encounter in 2012. But, before I let my pen touch paper with this activity, I look back at the year I have already had, the one that has brought so much to who I am and what I have here, in Austin. I will share some of the things, to you, in an attempt to encourage you to reflect as well on things gone by.

Things Gone By: 2011

1. I acquired my dream job: teaching middle school reading at KLMS
2. I finally began to make enough money to relax and at times, indulge
3. I went on a journey with my parents to Canada, Oregon and Washington
4. I spent a month in my dear Chico, in some of the most beautiful summer weather I have yet seen
5. I went on a trip with Heather to San Francisco, Santa Cruz and the Redwoods
6. I lost someone but gained others, and healed almost in full
7. I greeted a nephew, Weston, and held him in my arms when he was less than a week old, and had the most perfect shade of pink on his skin
8. I grew professionally and now have a confidence that I did not know I craved nor possessed
9. I wrote....and wrote some more......and have not lost my urge to FINISH my book
10. I kept all my family and friends safe within my sacred world, all while welcoming new ones, ones that will illuminate me more magnificently than ever before
11. And finally, a very small one, I purchased a banjo and started playing (though awfully) for no one in the world but myself

As I write this list, it is both calming to see what I have done, and thrilling to think of the list that will be written a year from now. Each year is so palpable with possibilities that it brings one into a near seizure with giddiness at what is possible for one that is 25, in possession of great family, friends and career, and so blessed. It seems unfair, in a myriad of ways, that I should get this time for myself and for exploration. That I live in country, where I can dream and be whatever pattern I choose to lay down. I read my students an article that discussed the Time Magazine "Person of the Year" for 2011, which was "The Protester" and found myself yet again preaching the blessing of living in a free country. I want them to see the world and its beauty, as well as its numerous flaws and inequalities. I want them to open their eyes, the way mine were thrown open, and I feel that in a way I am indebted to lady luck, and to appease her I must expose cruel truths to my students. Don't get me wrong, they love learning about such things, and though I feel at times guilty for pressing my strong feminist agenda, they have learned about real social and political issues in a way I know aren't taught by many. But how can I not? How can I not think of those who are not as sublimely lucky as myself? I am so privileged....but you know what, let's shelf that thinking for now because that is a much longer, more self-loathing post for another time.

I know that 2012 will surely have one thing in it, one thing that follows behind me like an elaborate, beckoning shadow; I know that I will long for the leaving. The leaving, what a statement? But it's true. I have a severe case of wanderlust, that I can not shake, no matter how violent my attempts are. I am always curious about the outside, of this safe little world, this local kind of city. I still want to live in Rio, Cairo, Vientiane, Istanbul and Antigua. No matter how much I love a place or a person there is a part of me not living inside, but that wants to trace the outline of a larger landscape that I can roam free upon. I will never stop loving the mystery of Ireland, the movement of tongues and language and castles in Prague, and the relentless battle of the old ways of the Andean Peru. It doesn't help to be around the whimsical minds of H and the delightful new arrival of R, from San Francisco. But I will try and lay these dreams of wandering aside for a while, and allow myself to be wrapped in the smushy embrace of middle school teaching. For most days, my longing is stretched only as far as wanting my students to find happiness, safety and greatness. But sometimes, I turn my spindle further, and my long line of velvet ribbon may weave over an ocean, and then I suppose I may have to leave again.

Until then, here is my list of 'goals' for 2012, none of which will burden you with 'weight loss' goals or sentiments and longing for great love, since those are both redundant and implied.

List of Longing and Attainment for 2012:

1. Finish the school year beautifully and with resounding accomplishment (and with a contract for the following year)
2. Join more Austin Sport and Social groups-such as kickball
3. Go to more poetry readings (and do some readings) and live music in Austin
4. FINISH MY BOOK!
5. Cook more healthy, locally grown meals
6. Maintain and create new friendships that nourish and don't deplete
7. Start a book club (I am already in the process of this)
8. Run 2 races (first one is scheduled in February)
9. Learn to play the banjo semi-well
10. Go to Central America for three weeks and experience absolutely everything I can (this is also planned, loosely, for July)
11. Move into a studio apartment and enjoy the sanctuary and silence of living alone
12. Buy a pet?
13. Volunteer more (get involved with Austin Literacy Center, perhaps)
14. Watch LESS television
15. Read 50 books
16. Wear my hair curly more (I have not started the year off well on this count)
17. Don't let myself judge others prematurely (especially guys, whom I can be either extremely hard on or extremely lenient with)
18. Watch four of my dearest friends in the world get married (2 weddings)
19. Write to my grandmother more often
20. Take time to drink tea and appreciate all that is lovely about myself, my life and my home

Alright, I think this post has enough meat in it, though in a different format than others, and it is now time for me to eat this hummus, feta and olive sandwich and talk with R about whatever comes into our whimsical little heads.

So I implore YOU to go forth and ask, 'What have I done?' and 'What can I make be done in this year before me?'