Little Sun Little Banjo

Wow. What a great weekend it's been. Yesterday, I woke up fairly early and drank my coffee while secretly thanking the heavens for the beautiful weather and cool morning air. I slowly got ready, and with some help from the darling Sophie dog, who sits on my balcony like a bitchy Juliet, I put on my cowboy boots and a white summer dress to go pick up C for the music festival. C and I drove to Driftwood, Texas, about a half hour outside of Austin, enjoying the sun and unmistakable fall breeze whipping our smiling cheeks.

When we arrived in Driftwood (after I passed our destination first, naturally) we were greeted with big grins from festival volunteers in worn jeans and t-shirts with banjos on them. I knew instantly it would be a good day. Since the music hadn't officially started, C and I decided to get lunch across the street at a famous BBQ joint called the Salt Lick. Now, I know what you're thinking, what in the world would Kristen even eat there? But they actually have a 'veggie' plate that includes a thick potato salad that sticks to your gums, coleslaw, and a nice helping of baked beans with, you guessed it, bits of bacon. And, to top it all off, a piece of big fluffy German bread to coat your already bulging stomach with. C got some actual meat, which at least helped make us not look like such hippies, and then we sat at over-sized picnic tables positioned under the most lovely Pecan trees you've ever seen. Their knobby, dark wood twisted and turned above our heads as we kicked back beers and talked about school, men and everything in between (which isn't much, because those two things are pretty potent elements to good convo).

I can't say I think about weddings too much, even though it is a hot topic in my house, but I have to say that the Salt Lick in Driftwood would be perfect. There are dangling white lights, an old wooden stage, and I can just picture myself in a beautiful white dress and my cowboy boots, looking around at everyone I love in this world holding up mason jars filled with beer to toast with. So, after we ate more than was sufficient, we made it back to the music festival in time to catch a jam session. Now, picture a lot of banjos, guitars, fiddles and mandolins all playing together in a euphoric harmony, while the shade lingers around you and the sun only peaks in to bring all of the music to a very magical glow. And the people, some in overalls, but mostly over 40 with such happiness spread over them that you know they look forward to this event all year. People are hugging old friends, reminiscing about last year's festival, and holding their instruments as though they are beloved toddlers straddling their hips.

And, the music, I simply can't describe. I think that the juiciest things in life are not properly portrayed in any form of communication, and music is one of them. I don't know what it is about the banjo, and folk/bluegrass in general, but hearing those porch-tapping beats brings my mind to its most simplistic, beautiful state. All I want to think of are the wildness of flowers, the luminescence of a sunrise, and the joy that comes with friends and American dreaming. I would say that if my happiness were some kind of recipe, I would need more than a pinch of folk music in order to get the flavor just right. It affects me in a way I am scared to think about, because the happiness comes at me so quickly, so sharply, that it's almost scary. I wonder sometimes if I heard a lot of it as a kid, or perhaps I acquired the taste, like I did with beer, but whatever the reason it is indeed my most true and dearest genre, and it inevitably makes me think of open spaces and all my dearest ones back home.

The creativity and rhythms of all the bands were sensational, that I will say, and while sitting in a foldable chair and sipping a beer, somehow hours slipped by and C and I grew so relaxed we both were at risk of drifting into a lullaby.

My favorite band yesterday was the Lost Pines. They were just awkward enough to be funny when they talked, and just passionate enough to blend into one true force of music while they played. They were truly magical in their playing, and even my lazy foot was coerced into a constant movement to try and be a part of it. It was also special to see my banjo teacher, though, strumming and picking away on his instrument in a band I didn't even know he was part of.

And now, what do I get to do tonight? I get to experience the magic of the Avett Brothers, at the most popular music venue in Austin, with two of my dear friends, D and H. So, has this weekend rocked? Yes, indeed it has.

I think if I met October on the street, I would hug her, because so far she has been the reason my spirits are high and my life is glimmering :-)

Just sitting, just living

From the aftermath of my last post, perhaps I might seem to be in a gloomy state. But, as the weather shifts, so does my mood. Now, I have the most beautiful day laid out in front of me, with a cool breeze and that blissful excitement of having a tall iced coffee in front of me, dripping delicate drops of perspiration. I have just added a new gruesome detail to my book and am anxious to get started. But before I do that.......

It has been a strange, busy week. We started last Sunday with a trip to the emergency room for Z, after he heckled our dear Sophie and she came out the obvious victor. There was blood everywhere. I held his lip with a paper towel that cruelly stuck to the injury like dried glue. We spent most of the day Sunday recovering from the escapade and lamenting that Z had to spend his 27th birthday unable to eat or drink anything. But, from there, the week trudged on, as it does. Monday is always my longest working day, where I am thrilled if I get out of there before 7. Then, Tuesday was fairly relaxing, as we knew Wednesday would hold a double round of kickball. It was fun, though, getting out and being social, though the grass felt like knives on my kneecaps and the air was thicker than peanut butter. We won our first game and man, I haven't felt that competitive and jubilant over a sporting activity in a long time. We were also all getting better, which is sort of hilarious, since we are honing the absolute most vestigial sporting skill of being good at playing KICKBALL! And naturally, it isn't just any kickball, it's kickball with a big ass ball.

So.......skip to Thursday and my roommates leave and I have the house all to myself. All I can think of all day is how lovely it will be to read and take a bath without anyone at all. N kept asking me all last week, "What will you do, being alone for four whole days?" It was as though she positively could not imagine that I may enjoy myself, which is putting it lightly! I am absolutely soaking in the pleasure that is solitude. Other than the obvious locking of my bedroom door, then putting the hamper against the door, and perhaps racing through the hallway so as not to be stabbed routine, I find myself cozying up to being alone quite nicely.

Doesn't N know the joy I felt as I traveled through Ireland alone, staring out streaked freezing windows on long bus rides throughout that incandescent green country? That I walked into pubs and ate alone, slightly fearful, but knowing that getting to know myself was the only thing in the world that I had to let matter? And how when I returned to Prague after that trip, I had a glow about me, that my other roommates, that had clumped together through Venice like a vine of heavy grapes, were perhaps even jealous of?

Perhaps this should worry me. Maybe I should be more like N, thinking it sad to be without constant human contact and friends. I should ponder and then disapprove that I woke up this morning with a grin ear to ear, squeezing my pillow affectionately and nearly pranced down the stairs. Perhaps. Perhaps I won't ever meet someone because I usually can get pretty damned weepy and fulfilled by devouring a good book alone. I don't really know. All I know is that it is 10:41 on Saturday and everything feels as though it is poised and radiant just for my pleasure. Sure, I will go out with friends tonight and leave my state of solitude briefly, but then I will race back home and curl up in my bed without the smallest concern for the empty house surrounding me.

But I do like humans, don't get me wrong. In fact, last night, I chaperoned the school dance, 7th and 8th grade. It was a long day, not leaving school until after 9pm, but I can't deny that the interaction with my fellow-teachers was lovely. Seeing even my businesslike AP question, even for a second, if he actually would line dance, and my friend D trying to the Cupid Shuffle were memories I refuse to let age or apathy extract from me. And oh, those awkward, awkward kids that looked around helplessly to find someone they recognized, and how they all jumped in when I taught them my favorite line dance. I can honestly remember that desperation. In middle school, I was in a constant state of panic that I would be found somewhere alone, and that I would have to eat my french loaf of french bread and ranch in a bathroom stall or something. But that was a long time ago, more than ten years, and I find myself wondering what the kids I teach now will turn into when they grow up. I hope that they will get an opportunity to knock on the sky and hear an answer.

I think that what the dance did for me, being that perfect mix of ridiculous and awesomeness that it was, is it let me know I can never truly be a recluse, because, if nothing else, I like seeing bad dancing too much.

To wrap this diatribe up, I will say, with unequivocal confidence, that I have no clue what will happen in my life. But. that doesn't mean that things aren't exactly as they are meant to be, right now, in this very corner of my most divine living.

Petrin Hill Blossoms on My Mind

What to say? I am sitting indoors, away from the thick clumps of air outside, and wondering about how time can go by so fast, and yet, sometimes lay out in front of you like the endless highway across the abandoned state of Nevada. Lately I have not felt as though life is moving quite as I want it to. This isn't to say it's moving slowly, because frankly, with the way work pummels me I can barely take a breath. No.....it is something more. I wonder how long I can stay in Austin and still love it the way I am certain it deserves. The weather, surely, is enough to break even the most cushioned of spirits right now, but it's more than that. There is no escape here, from the city that is. Everywhere I go there is concrete, or if I do escape it, I know that I am in a patch of trees that only tease me momentarily before yet another stretch of gray is revealed.

I feel as though all the people here are the same, and I grow antsy. I want something very very different. I want to get some epic tropical disease again and wonder, will I need a blood transfusion on a dirty Thai hospital bed? OK, maybe I don't want that exactly, but I do feel as though things are mundane. During the week, I work 12 hour days and come home and feel very similar to one of those large manatees who lives in one of the most beautiful oceans but can barely move fast enough to catch a floating piece of seaweed. Then, Wednesdays come and I am more exhausted than ever and I force myself to get into the car and make my way to kickball and GASP, socialize with people other than those in education! Finally, Friday sneaks up with a spurt of euphoric confetti and I am zonked by midnight from the joy of it all. It isn't really until Sunday that I have chiseled away the plaque from the rest of the week and start remembering that I even have a creative side that exists beyond lesson planning and putting up red and white polka dot border. I'm not even married and this is my life. I am single and still I find it hard to have time with myself. How is that even possible?

A year has gone by, and then some. This time last year, H and I were biking downtown to try and catch a few notes from the ACL music festival. I was still not hired and egregiously broke, and she was exhausted from life. Now, I have a great job that I love and we have 'game night' at our house and make chili and cookies. Naturally, if this weren't happening I would be complaining about that, too.....but I really do wonder how long will my life in Austin last? Will I meet someone who doesn't want to tie me down or 'figure me out' or think I'm interesting without really wanting to make me less interesting over time? Will someone every just rejoice in every bit of who I am the way I see it done in theaters? Will I ever stop loving Jane Austen and all the period pieces from a time where women were equally besotted and oppressed by gentlemen? And I digress yet again with Victorian sentiments.......

I just don't understand how to think about time. Am I meant to not think about next year? How can I not, when I may have to sign a legal document committing myself to set frame of days by April? Is Austin really somewhere I can be for much longer, or will I start to hate it, little by little, for not having seasons, not having an ocean, mountains, open space for me to run in? I just want to move to Italy, really, or return to my dear Praha, where the city is old and vibrant and the apartments are small only because dreams are bigger than property. But, you can escape to the hillside, the most wondrous hillside where pear trees explode in March, and you can weep at the lines of rock that have erected a magnificent place of worship. Why do I miss these things so much? Why does everyone else love Austin so ferociously when I feel mostly apathy? I wonder if I am deeply, deeply ungrateful, or if I am just being an insubordinate resident, a petulant child that doesn't want to like something that everyone else likes. How do you know when you are meant to be somewhere?

I often wonder if I have just been gone from home for too damned long. If I need to just get back there, get back home before I tear down every city in America with my longing for Chico. There is no beauty like that of my dearest orchards, my Bidwell Park, and the way the Pacific sighs int he evenings. How can I live anywhere that doesn't allow me to spend a Saturday gazing upon John Muir's most trusted friend, the giant Redwood?

But of course, so many questions, too many really, for a lazy, humid Sunday in a city that is jammed pack full of hipsters and celebs. So I will get back to my 'real' writing now, and stop telling you all the ways life astounds me, for I fear you would have to sit with me for some time before my mouth stopped moving.

Breeze for the Parched

I think this may be it; we have made it through the most painful summer in 50 years. It has felt like it, too, though I was lucky enough to escape the bulk of it. Just six weeks of relentless blaze has made me feel lethargic and irritated by the crippled landscape around me. There is a bleakness with drought that is hard to understand. It does not wipe out towns in a matter of minutes, nor does it break in half skyscrapers, instead it slowly extracts the life out of all the things around you. It reminds me of Scotland, in January, when the sun started setting at four and you pleaded with it to give you just a little more of its light.

But now, now I wake up and it is the second day of relief. There is a fall breeze that almost mimics a sacred howling and for a moment I can pretend that 90 degrees is as heavenly as 76 (the sick part being that I think it truly does feel like 76).

As humans, we love that things begin and end. Babies are born in unison with elders dying, flowers bloom then return to the earth, and we wait excitedly for them to resurrect again. We lament change, but really, it is what our life is driven by. How can we continually love the heat and childlike feel of summer when it has been that way for five months? We can not. We need change to start us up again, to regain our attention and our passion into something revitalizing. I need to let go of pools and BBQ and steaming cement in order to be part of something new. Never have I wanted pumpkin spice candles or hot soup and bread more. And when it ends, when my dear fall ends, I will miss it dearly, and when it returns it will be all the better because change makes me miss more ardently. Change makes me lament all the things I am scared I wouldn't love enough if they were mine always. Even my students show the benefit of change. In my classroom, students work harder and with more vigor when they know the activity will change in twenty minutes. They desire to be moved, to change their thinking, and I wonder if that way of thinking ever truly leaves us.

I suppose that is a normal thing to fear, not loving the steady things in your life (or perhaps I just like to pretend it is). What if I had everything I wanted, in my hands, every day, would I still love it so? Perhaps I would, or perhaps my affections would wander and get lost down the street, besotted with something just out of reach.

I already am remembering people and things fondly, as though when I had them they were utterly amazing. That guy, the one I know was not for me, is remembered now for the lovely words he rarely spoke, the way his arms wrapped around me when he chose to come to me at all. I am so good at these tailored lies it begins to store in my mind as truth. This, of course, is not how things were, and I must remind myself that change moves us forward because we need to move, and we must not turn our neck too far to what was. I believe something or someone is meant to stay with you, it would have.

The best part about change is that you never really know when it will sweep you away. One day you feel as though fall will never come, and then you are awoken by heavy, sultry winds and you step outside to the most delightful smell of crumbled leaves and cooler whisps of air. You are always given what you need, always provided with that vibrancy of change when you thought nothing could ever thrill again.

So I sit outside now, at my favorite coffee shop, letting myself get lost in the flashbacks of this new season, as I start to let go of everything summer placed upon me. I peel back the memories of summer until I am naked and new, awaiting all the sensational things that will find me this season.

Boyz to Men

Come on, admit it, you LOVE this band.....I mean, everyone does, right? It is a totally intriguing name when it comes to R & B jams and a bunch of men in matching clothes from the 90's, but in life, there is a bit more to it than that.

So, when do boys turn IN to men?

I have been wondering this for some time. When is that wonderful age when they stop shotgunning beer and farting the alphabet? It turns out that there is really no one time, it is instead different for each kind of guy. My roomate, H, sums it up as more of a phase-thing. For example, a guy (I use this non-descript word for a male specimen with undocumented boy or man status) can either be in his 'single college' phase or he could have transitioned into the 'serious relationship' phase. You have to be on the look out for this, almost as much as someone in Texas looks out for rain on the forecast as they approach a record-breaking streak of drought. You can pick up on these phases with the following signs:

A guy is in the single-college phase if:
-He wears a backward hat
-Lives with 4 or more people
-Uses words like 'bro' or 'stellar'
-Nods his head at people, as though to acknowledge them without words
-Wants to get tattoos that involve some kind of snake/dragon (this is always a red flag)
-He plays video games three or more times a week
-Pizza is a food group
-He slaps your back when you hug him
-He drools and tries to lodge his tongue down your throat as though it is a medical examination
-He continues working non-stop part-time gigs and loses his wallet on numerous dating excursions
-He refers to your job as being 'real' and you are really 'grown-up'
-He calls you seven times between 2:32 a.m. and 4:29 a.m.
-He grabs your ass when cuddling (if cuddling happens at all) and/or doesn't look you in the eye while hooking up
-He calls you 'sexy lips' or 'my lady'
-His friends have lime on their breath from doing body shots of of sorority girls the night before
-He owns a dog and lets it drink from the beer bong

A guy is in the serious-relationship phase if:
-He buys his own home
-He has decorations in his living space/bedroom
-Owns a button-down shirt and wears it regularly
-Prefers a beer over 'shot shot, shot shot shot' (please think of the song when reading sequential shot writings)
-Enjoys things like salmon or any other kind of fish
-He enjoys watching sunsets
-Owns a pair of genuinely nice leather shoes
-He holds you tight when you hug him
-He gently kisses your neck, eyes, cheeks.......sigh
-He has a career-oriented job that makes him fulfilled enough not to want to fly to San Fran to jump off the Golden Gate with animated hand gestures
-He calls you at 9:00 p.m. to tell you, once again, what a wonderful time he had at dinner with you
-He plays with your hair and moves his arm up in anticipation of you wanting to 'lie in the nook'
-He calls you 'baby' and 'honey' (we hope nothing sicker starts, like 'shnookums')
-His friends like to play pool and have a beer on the weekends
-He owns a dog and takes it to the dog park

These are just some general tips to look out for that I have found. It is amazing how guys, when they allow themselves to transition into the serious phase, change their actions. Suddenly, women are less disposable plastic objects and become these lifelike whimsical creatures that they want to hold onto.

My other roomate, N, has been having some problems in the guy world, just like me. I mean, let's face it, it's tough out there. Between online dating, meeting guys downtown at bars and the occasional set-up, it feels as though there aren't any good men left on the planet (and of course all the ones you fall in love with instantly are married). I went on a lot weird, awkward dates last year, and the only one that sort of worked out only lasted three months. I often wonder, are these three-month relationships really good or did they just destroy me a little bit more? I don't know....I guess as long as I don't start hissing at all men then I'm not too bitter, right? I think we all just want to be JILTED by a great love. Is that so much to ask for? I mean, why does Mandy Moore always get the happy ending?

I think both of us, N and I, thought that as we got older guys would finally mature and enter into the next phase. It seems that this isn't always the case. Sometimes they are 25 when they transition (like H's boyfriend), but other times they are 32 and they only transition after all their friends get married and they realize they have the maximum subscription to Netflix. It just takes time and faith to meet the right guy. I think it is also important to not have a set-in-stone list of the guy you want to be with. For example, the last guy I dated hit almost all of my wishlist, such as: drove a truck, had his own place, was a country boy, owned dogs, was incredibly smart, was quiet/tortured, was a great snuggler.......and so forth (weep, sniffle) with some added bonuses of: opened my door, was a great kisser, loved driving me around everywhere, was happy to hang out in groups with my friends. But, he was SO not right for me, and I think I should STOP pretending I know what's perfect for me. After all, it has taken me 25 years just to find out what clothes are the right fit on me, so why should I be so presumptuous as to think I know what man will contour to me?

So keep up the good fight ladies (and you guys, too), because I think the relationship gods have a cruel sense of humor but are saps at heart. There IS someone for all of us out there, just don't be upset if he isn't over 6 feet like you'd envisioned......

Bleach It

OK, so don't judge me, but I have gone and bleached/dyed my hair blond. Well, alright, it already WAS a little blond, but I did highlights and now I am like Barbie blond. As though I needed any more fuel for the 'locavore' Austin fire, being from Cali and all, but now I look like the kind of person that may have surf wax in her purse or something. But, then again, Texans do love the crazy blond, big-haired thing. It's OK though, I think it adds that bit of zest to things in my life (not that I am too short on that right now). I have started school and it feels amazing to be actually doing something with my time. I mean, hey, I am all for long afternoons where I nuzzle up with the spine of a book, but I do need more than that, too.

Work is strangely exhilarating. I mean, who knew that setting up my class and attending department and team meetings could get me so thrilled? It's kind of sick really. I even know that I am that irritating 'young-en' that is always smiling and has the energy of a Cocker Spaniel. I'm sure it will pass by the end of next week, but right now I'm having way too much fun wearing pencil skirts and using academic acronyms. Bleh, I am a sad, sad case aren't I?

I guess there is a reason for my new highlights. I said goodbye to someone that for some reason I was hanging onto. Sort of like those scabs that you keep on because, hey, you kind of like that people think you're a badass. But really, you need to just pluck it off and throw it in the bin. So, I did that, but it looked more like me tip-toeing up to his porch and dropping his fabulously baggy gray sweatpants on the doorstep along with a note that made me seem more mature than I'm really feeling. So...the next night, I scheduled a hair appointment and BAM! I am back in action. I am a sassy gal and I have sassy hair so whatcha gotta say about it?

It has been miserably hot. I mean, I may-peel-off-my-shirt-in-front-of-a-stranger-just-to-get-a breeze-from-their-open-aghast-mouth kind of hot. The A/C at my school is on 'low', as in, low on cost not low in temperature. So, not only do I get to see my fabulous colleagues, but I get to smell them as well (and I am not excluding myself from the stench by any means).

It is amazing to go back to a place and realize, hey, I know people here and I don't think they hate me too much. In fact, this morning, when I walked into the ELA District Meeting, a new women from my school raised her hand up immediately and rushed me over with a grin as though I had coffee beans grinding in my chest. She was alone, granted, and may have asked Charles Manson to join the group, but she noticed me and I was equally glad to be welcomed by her. Then, the other people from our school came in. I got to see them, one by one, make eye contact with me and start in my direction, as though I were somehow part of their directional purpose. It was kind of cool.

Anyways, I am actually exhausted now that I am at home, in my room, and in the cool-ish air that somehow flows in magic whisps around my room in icy chunks. I picked up a book that my dear friend Roger gave me and now it sits, on my bed, awaiting my arrival and my sweet grasp on its cover. (Has anyone noticed my talk of books is becoming sexual? No? OK good.)

That is all for now. No real theme to this post, but they don't make sticky notes big enough for my ranting brain OK?

The Colors Abound

Well, I'm here, back in the 'big city' and all of that. It's nice, too, being in Austin with friends that were fast becoming mere images from old films than actual flesh beings from my year living in Texas. "This is where I live," I whisper to myself, "this is my home now."

After being welcomed at the airport by H, J, Z and N I felt like nothing could touch this chapter in my life. That's what it feels like, too, a new phase. Sure, some of the same characters reappear in my life (some have been imprinted in my own flesh for decades) but there is still that smell of spring, that smell of wandering blossoms and wild lavender in the air that makes me think something's up. What will it be? I don't know, and oh! how I rejoice in the unknowing!

I had a very anchoring conversation, while on my summer hiatus, at a lovely coffee shop, sitting outdoors sipping an iced coffee with my spiritual equivalent of the Dalai Lama. She can be tough, downright brutal, really, but it is her ferocity for truth that reminds me that it isn't just that I seek answers with her, but that I seek them in myself. I think I can say, unabashedly, that this is one of my greatest qualities. Even when I smother truth with pillows filled with naivety, I still keep it alive, even if it's barely breathing beneath my weight. This can also be an obnoxious quality to have, one that is unrelenting and forces you to see far uglier things than you wish. But, in the end, I do believe it is truth that will set you free (and so I use cliches when they are epically appropriate).

When I think of truth I like to picture a photograph in black and white. It looks lovely enough, demure and classy, but if you look closer you see there is one part of it that shines with color. There is that one bright hue that lashes out, drawing you into it, and you know that is where the beauty is, in the realness of what you are. It is a blue door in a dull landscape, telling you that this is where the juicy opening of your life stems.

I am hoping that this next year will be lined in truth. Like the inside of a plant cell, I will guard my walls with impenetrable honesty about who I am and what I want. I will not let people make me less than that. I will teach as best I can, while quietly unraveling all the ways I can improve (while hopefully gently avoiding any emotional masochism). That I can love with everything inside of me, knowing I will get hurt badly, scraped across highways of human relationships, because that is the absolute only way to find the sum of what I am capable of.

Austin can be a very tricky place to find truth. At times it feels as though you are plucking petals from a flower, asking truth if it loves you or loves you not. Everywhere you look there are those that are lying about who they are and what they want. Their clothes alone remind you how desperately people hope you can not see through them. Perhaps a vest, from 1976, can make them look unique and worthy of film class, or that a tattoo weaving up an ivory back can be a shield against people claiming you're uninteresting. But we know better. And I can feel that flurry of city bringing me in already; the drinking, the partying, the men........It is a very vibrant call and I will remind myself what the truth is inside of me, for that is the gravest stance of all, not knowing one's self well enough to have conviction. If you can not fight for yourself, how can you expect victory?

I will read my own words, in months to come, (or this very same afternoon) so that I can at least try and make them true. For, as I write, I know that it is I that am most worried about being those dishonest things than anyone else.

So here's to a fresh start. A big white glob of paint stuck on my life, reminding me I must actively search for the colors that make my heart delight.