The Good, the Bad, and the Heinously Ugly (of relationships)

I have decided to share some cruelly intimate details about being in a relationship. I have had
a lot of dating experience, enough to make a girl cry, really, but now that I've been with the same guy for almost a year, I am finding dating was a cakewalk in comparison. I've split up the writing into the Good, the Bad, and the Heinously Ugly, in hopes that you can excavate any truths that apply to you. Oh, and I want you to smile, and maybe grimace, but mostly smile after reading.

 Let's start with the Good....so as not to frighten anyone.

The GOOD:

The best part of relationships are nights like last night, when I had the worst cramps imaginable, similar to elephants playing hopscotch on my ovaries, and my boyfriend was willing to rest his warm hand on my hip as we lay together, to act as a human heating pad....I mean, I know this wouldn't make it in a RomCom or anything, but dang, that is love in the best way. Another good thing about being in love is knowing that your boyfriend has agreed to fly 1,000 miles to meet your family, go to a wedding with you, all to let you know he cherishes you. In one week Joey will fly to Denver to meet not only my parents, but my sister, her husband and two kids, as well as my grandma and uncle. Did I mention that almost all these people are living in the same house for the summer, that Joey and I will also stay in? I'm not going to lie to you, if the situation was reversed, I'd be downright terrified. I know that my family is wonderful, but they are also loud, in your face, and so sarcastic that my mom has nearly made a couple of my friends cry when she was very obviously (in my daughter opinion) joking. Another lovely thing about relationships is knowing that someone is so connected with your life. Often, while we are watching TV, I'll start rambling about work or friends and "Oh my GOSH!" statements, and he just politely pauses and turns, to listen to whatever ridiculous nonsense I care to sputter, with a smile on his face. I mean, it's enough to make me feel almost borderline interesting. Though, I know, he is more or less bound to listen to me as long as we're together and at this point, he knows everyone so he is ready to give his feedback, sometimes with an ever-growing finger wag that makes him border on sassy (clearly a sign of me hanging out with teens too much and him hanging out with me too much).

The BAD:

 Well I'll just come right out and say it: vacations suck now. I really can't go on a vacation now without thinking, wow, Joey would really like it here.....or, HEY there's a brewery over there he'd ADORE! It's pathetic, and embarrassing, really, because I used to travel all over the world alone. I got on a plane, alone, to Prague, Peru and Ireland. While everyone else I studied abroad with went together on trips for spring break, I was dreaming of Irish countrysides and juicy evenings curled up with a book all by myself. Me, with a backpack and a plane ticket was all I needed in the world to survive (and avocados, I always need those to survive). And you know what? I am also a LOT needier now. I used to hear these girls talk about how they have to see their boyfriends ALL the time and in my head I was really thinking, that's sort of sad for you...to be so needy....little Ms. Independent would NEVER need to see a man so much...and yet here I am, needing to see him so much that I might as well be renting my room out to earn extra cash. The scariness of love is also bad. That fear that someone really knows you, really sees you, and that one day they may decide to stop loving you. Or, that something could happen to them, and you'd have to actually learn something about cars instead of relying on them to do all of the maintenance. Of course, most of the bad here is good....because hey, it really isn't that bad, at the end of the day, to love and be loved. But still, my cool independent lady points, which once were a reasonable amount, are slowly flopping out of my piggy bank onto the floor.

The HEINOUSLY UGLY:

Alright, here's when it gets real. I think most of you can relate to this, and if you can't than I'm going to be forced to think you're either lying or have struck upon a grace that I really hope to find one day. Let me start with this little gem of a story: I am trimming Joey's hair, already terrified of the device and possibility of slicing him Sweeney Todd style, when I trim to high above his ear and give him a straight up bald spot. Suddenly my handsome boyfriend looks more like a mauled hick. He actually screeches when he looks at his own reflection. And then, what do I do? Well, I'll tell you what I didn't do, which is apologize and rub his back, gently telling him he still looks like a character from a Harlequem Romance novel. No, I ran to the bed (his, mind you), jumped under the covers, cried and refused to let him coax me out of my shameful cocoon. Did this last for a few minutes, you ask? Oh no, we're talking about an hour, at least. I haven't actually run and hid from someone since the days my sister would chase me, screaming, up that stairs while my grandma babysit us as kids.

The truth is, when you're in a relationship, all your worst qualities are reflected back at you. How jealous you can be, how vein, how pouty, how stubborn, how unbelievably naggy you can be while all the while, as a single gal, you go around thinking how crazy these girls in relationships are and that you certainly would NEVER be like them. Well, folks, now I'm in the club. I have said things like, "It would be great if you could stop doing that," and also things like, "Could you maybe wear this instead?" I bitch at him about all these things and somehow he still wants to spend time with me and hold me during the whole movie. It amazes me. When we are at the bar and a guy looks at me or talks to me, he is relatively unfazed. Meanwhile, one time a female bartender in booty shorts and cutoff shirt smiled at him and said, "Hey Joey, how's it going?" there was honestly a dark forest that grew inside me, wishing that she would maybe fart while stacking glasses or something so that I wouldn't be continuously blown over and irritated by her overall hotness.

 Luckily, I have a guy who doesn't let me storm out of the room or house when all I want to do is not face the problem and just run and hide. He gently reaches for my arms, guides me to the couch and makes me look at him and talk through it. I think Webster's Dictionary would define this as: maturity. I thought I was mature, I mean, all day I keep kids on task and cluck at them to follow school rules. I pay my bills. I cook from scratch (sometimes) and know how to properly set the dinner table. I have an AMAZON account, for goodness sake, how much more mature can it get? It turns out, I have an emotional age of about thirteen. It's like the opposite of dog years. I don't know how some people are so mature in relationships, but I'm grateful they are, because even though I'm getting better at not shutting down and crawling into holes only Batman would find interesting, I still am a child when it comes being in love.

I suppose that is the fun, though. Learning each others most obnoxious qualities and then figuring out how to maneuver around them, almost like the Matrix and bullets. Joey has learned to tickle my feet, in moments of tension, and I have learned to poke his face when he is looking glum or is being particularly irritating. I guess it is the fighting within yourself, that realizes that it's nice to have something worth fighting for. And, better yet, it's nice to have someone in the ring with you, after many years of you against the world, even if at times you want to jab the other person :)

How it Brings May Flowers

I look around at the wildflowers here, in this normally desolate and thirsty display of nature, and I nearly want to weep at the depth of petals and the vivacity of color around me. The bluebonnets, Indian Paintbrush, and countless other flora around me that I can not name. I sigh and think, this is what the song says about May. But, all of my past experiences with a Texas May have shown me humidity, 90 degrees and rising, and everything turned to a burnt, scorching yellow. As I sit on my porch in a sweater, this early risen Sunday morning, I am so grateful for the perfect stretch of Spring that continues on.

I find myself in a place in my life where I am thinking about things never once thought upon (at least not in a real way) before. Usually, I was either experiencing online-dating travesties worthy of some type of rambling memoir, traveling aimlessly with some illness, or fumbling in a career where you never will feel finished or that you've done enough. It is strange, then, to find myself with the same, wonderful man for 8 months now. To go to work and have at least a few moments where I see improvement in myself, and then to go home knowing I have finally, after five years of inconsistent bursts of labor, closed in upon the end stage of my book.

I guess 26 (nearing 27) is a strange but beautiful place in your life.  Sex and the City tells me I am hopelessly young and need to experience more, while small-towns and archaic literature and films tell me I am old and may die alone. I watch marriages flourish and fail, careers die and others go back to school again, and I know that I am in a part of life that is constantly changing. At this age, you are somewhere between missing getting crazy downtown, to finding dive bars closer by, and realizing that it's Saturday night and you just want to cuddle with your boyfriend and his dog on the couch with a glass (ahem...or two) of wine.

The other night I told my dearest friend, H, that I felt so lame for leaving downtown early with some of my single friends in order to go snuggle with my boyfriend in Pflugerville of all places. How could I want to leave music, the bright white lights and energy of a city to go sixteen miles north to a sort of ghetto suburbia? Well, I guess that's what love is. H just sort of laughed and said, "Welcome to my life," in that way she does that is somewhere between a delightful laugh and sigh of relief that we are almost on the same page. She is used to me being the single gal who loves scouting for guys at pubs and who somehow has texts at 2a.m. from guys I swear I never gave my number to.....these days though, I am cooking salmon burgers and rice in the kitchen of Joey's house, listening to the copious amounts of oil he put in the pan pop and wondering how Monday nights got to be so lovely.

I hear my 8th grade students mumblings sometimes, their precious fears of "What comes next?" They are filled with that same fear that I have felt of late, that things are changing, that the time of selfishness has perhaps been slowly waving goodbye to you for some time now. I watched my lovely co-worker K's belly rise, like a wonderful baked good, and then yesterday, I met that perfect pink baby Q. I can not convey the light that shined in her cheeks, that glow of motherhood that wraps itself around that soul of a person, and I can nearly feel my ovaries bursting within me.

Naturally, I have always wanted babies. I mean, come on, I grew up in a daycare, and then worked at that same daycare through my teens. A baby on the hip has always fit on me better than expensive leather purses. And yet, I am also incredibly selfish. I adore being alone, writing, eating mac n cheese alone in my bed in the most delicious evening of cheesy gluttony imaginable. I also can not save money....well, I suppose I am good at saving for plane tickets, and trips, but when it comes to actually saving just to save I am impossibly stubborn. Though I feel like it is cliche to watch your friends start to have babies and want it yourself, I fear that is where my heart is wandering. Now, I certainly need three plus years to settle down a bit (ahem....get a ring...) and learn to make casseroles, I suppose, as all moms somehow intrinsically are able. It is just amazing that I am even near to this point. Somehow, the 78 middle-school children are not a deterrent in this want for children....can you believe? Even their sassy wagging of tongues does not faze me, as I am sure I will have very nerdy, quiet children that will read Saturday mornings (after we all sleep in) in my magical outdoor garden while sipping tea.....and then I will make homemade jam and pies while still maintaining a fabulously slim figure....all of this is reasonable, right?

As I approach the time of year when the long stretch of summer will lie before me, I find myself trying to improve. To take classes in baking, fitness and hopefully language as well. I am also going to soak up the sleep and leisure because I have, for some reason, decided to go back to school and get my master's degree in Advanced Literacy. Why would a teacher, who gets paid a mere $500 more a year for such credentials, decided to go through two years of extended education and slaving after work? Well, I suppose it is because I love to learn. Teachers love to see learning in others, but I like to think I am learning new things about myself every day...for example, how I managed to not scream profanities at the most apathetic and irritating student on the planet....I will tell you, nothing is harder in this world than keeping your cool with a sassy teen. Every day a middle school teacher does not get fired for cussing and/or swatting a child is a total victory.

I suppose what the general ramble of this entire blog is about is that I am growing up? Now, I assure you I am still endlessly infantile, and will admit that I am a very graceless fighter who pouts and storms off in relationships the way five-year-olds do, but I'm trying. I am starting to think about what is next in this life of mine, and realizing that perhaps there will be a time when I want to decorate a home, weed a garden, and swaddle a little baby more than seeing the temples of SouthEast Asia.

This, for me, is a strange swirl of growing up. I suppose I can thank my parents, for departing the edifice of my youth and forcing me to say goodbye. For now, Austin is my home. I will spend year 3 in my little Ewok Village and perfect miniature room with my balcony.....wondering if it will be the last I will spend there.

I will leave you with these words to ponder.....

"I think I'm finally growing up - and about time."



-Elizabeth Taylor

 

Shall we pack the light-up squirrel?

Oh my, how much time has passed since my last posting! Is that me, in the picture, you ask? Why yes, it is, and you know, I still own that outfit in an adult size and I wear it regularly in Austin with fuzzy socks.

Many things have passed since I last wrote, including my adoring and attempting to educate a new group of teens at work, meeting a wonderful man and trying to be good at relationships (though I fear I still need to consult H quite regularly), but today I want to focus on something else, something I have wept over multiple times and ultimately, thanks to chocolate and wine, have come to accept.

Let me start by saying that I am the product of too much love, snuggling and stability, and therefore fully can blame my parents for my inability to cope with change. So, naturally, when they began to tell me that the house I grew up in, was brought home to at one day old, was going to be sold in their newfound dream to move to the Rocky Mountains near my sister, I was obstinate. Let's be honest, I was a first-world brat (much more destructive than the other third-world brat, who merely sasses mothers over an empty pot of beans). My sister has been calling me, clucking with joy that our parents would be near her soon, in Denver, when all I could think of were the orchards I ran to for all those years. I thought of how my Dad always built these pungent, blazing fires and would let the cold in while he carried in wood from our fallen walnut trees out back, the same ones that I swung from for hundreds of hours dreaming I could indeed fly.  I could only think that, without my house and parents in Chico, I actually had no home at all.

  Maya Angelou once wrote, "The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned." I have felt this ache, in Europe, South America, Asia and over the four collegiate years I spent terrified of snow and leaving people behind. I grew tired of being questioned abroad, was I too much a feminist, or a disgrace to the whole movement? Was I the innocent girl I thought I was or had I grown cynical and broken? Why couldn't I love Anne Sexton as much as everyone else I was around?

While my sister seems, overall, less sentimental from our hometown, I remain so enraptured in it that I find myself dreaming of February almond blossoms even whilst bathing in the warm waters of the Gulf of Thailand. I ache for the safety of a town where I go to a dentist that has my sophomore dance pictures in a manila folder with my name on it and who is named Dr. Moon and still offers toys out of a plastic treasure chest. I love to weave the streets seeing my old, dilapidated junior high a mere block away from the large coniferous trees that blanket my brick high school. And, naturally, even more than the places, are the people. If my parents leave, I will have to say goodbye to Christmas Day-Night beers with my high school friends, and music festivals in the mountains, and crying with my dear ones over tragedy and beauty in equal measure with wine on a couch no one quite knows the origin of. 

How does one let go of their hometown, without at the same time letting go of their childhood?

I often feel more afflicted with this problem than others. Perhaps it is because I grew up in one house only, or perhaps, as I fear, I am just more sentimental and emotional than potentially 93% of the rest of the world. I must say that over Christmas break, my guy friends gave me some of their opinions about something in my personal life that I was not exactly thrilled to hear, and I found myself mentally doing a very vulgar 'suck it' hand gesture in my mind at them, thinking it is time to move on from this place anyhow. I am 26 years old, how much longer must I hold onto the past? I am no longer that little awkward teen that gets green beans in her braces or belts the soundtrack to One Tree Hill before chemistry class. I know now, that when guys buy me vodka, especially if it's a heinous strawberry or other fruit flavor, they probably want to sleep with me, not discuss the essay portion of college applications. I also dress better now, thank goodness I said goodbye to black and hot pink era, and have learned to flatten my fro with product and 410 degree hair wands. I have left, come back, and left again, in a way that marked me so I know longer can gracefully fall into the mold this town had constructed for me. 

I suppose the truth is, I don't know where my life will go. I have family spread out all over the country and I don't know why I chose Texas, or if I'm feeling spiritual, Texas chose me, and it scares the hell out of me to not have a permanent address. I am floating. I am 26 and still floating and while I love to be free I am terrified I will never touch back down for any length of time. I can not decide where I am supposed to be, who I am supposed to be with, or what I am meant to do (though teaching does feel pretty close to what they say 'passion' is). I like being the girl that goes away and comes back, but I can't handle when those same people holding 'Welcome Home' posters in SFO are the same ones telling me they can no longer anchor my existence.


And it took my mother, my father, a sick uncle and a slipping grandmother, to show me that I am too old to hold on to these things. For they are, as I said, just things. A house is a sanctuary, yes, but it is also just carpet and dry wall, while my family is my whole life. I stripped my room, the closet, the drawers, dividing into trash, Goodwill, and boxes to take out east, because at some point, I have to accept that my Chico may not be where I will end up. I may not have a magical wedding in the orchards, with hanging white lights and candles and the Railflowers sweeping us all into a harmonic trance,  it may just be a lovely little town in which I once lived. 

"I've always wanted a house that faced the mountains," my mother said, thirteen days ago, to no one in particular. 
She was staring at something I could not see, and I knew then, that she had dreams, too. So often this family chooses to live my dreams, encourage me, send me off, edit my writing in a circle with pen tips in their studious mouths, but it's time for her now. My mother deserves that house, that faces the mountains, where she can live with my father alone for the first time in over thirty years. I may be selfish and certainly indulgent, but I do love, and my love for her ended up being enough to break me of my most viscous and consuming habit: dreaming of what once was. 

I will return once more, to Chico, in March. The flowers will taunt me with blooms and surely the grass will hold that level of green that made Ireland seem familiar, and I will jog once more in the orchards (breathing harder than I'd like and wondering why people run marathons without their inner thighs bleeding). I will strip the walls of our pictures, the tables of our sacred artifacts, and then I will say goodbye to Autumnwood Ct. the way they say adults are supposed to do, for we may place childish games still but we are no longer children.

I wonder if they will pack the light-up squirrel, purchased out of Publisher's Clearing house by my senile blessed grandmother (the same year my brother-in-law got a lavender scented purple shoe rack). It is an ugly plastic device that glows at night ominously, but it has become part of the loveable symbol of the eccentricity of my family. And yet, I hope it stays in Chico. Perhaps it will stay on the rickety bench built thirty-one years ago, or be thrown away with some other Christmas gifts secretly tossed away in the barefoot dark hours. Sometimes you have to open that black silky garbage bag and start fresh, because the past can grow cumbersome, and I want nothing more than my family to feel that magnificent lightness in a new state, where the only thing that glows is the sun as it droops it's red body down behind the mountains where my mom sits waiting, and watching, from her mountain-view home.

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!