i got the interwebs in my home!

What does this mean?

1. I can write here more often! Since starting the new job, my only internet outlet has been the office, where — get this — I work. No time for the ol’ personal blog. I’m actually getting a warm fuzzy feeling knowing I’m going to be in this space more often.

2. I can read your blogs again. Hurray for getting to access my Google Reader which at this point has blog posts piled so deep I’ll be reading through the weekend.

3. I’m obviously spending Friday night alone. You know who I hung out with tonight? Joan from the online Help Center. Joan, who’s probably a dude named Akarsh sitting in a cube somewhere in Nepal. She got me set up with internet! And she called me ‘valued’. How sweet. Otherwise tonight is about me and this blog post, then bean burritos and “Alias”.

Here’s to a Friday night connected and to more blog posts to come!

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texas to minnesota

So, it turns out it takes a long time to get from Texas to Minnesota. Long enough that you can make a thirteen minute video. Making the video kind of gave me someone to talk to for 18 hours which makes me sound crazy, but actually the video helped pass the time. And this morning I put some scraps together. Here you go… just in case you want to watch someone talk to himself.

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moving = stress bomb

I can’t stop eating. This has happened before. Pre-Peace Corps I ate everything in site with, of course, the rational that I wasn’t going to get to eat my favorite foods for some years. I gained twenty pounds in two months. Before I left I didn’t have a pair of pants that fit, and for the entire plane ride to Armenia I had my pants unbuttoned.

Now I’m moving across the country. Last night my mother made a pie consisting mostly of cream cheese and condensed milk, and while it is my favorite pie in the world, that is no excuse for eating multiple slices in a row. I’m fairly certain that Minnesota will provide me with the four necessary ingredients for said pie should I require it, so no Peace Corps excuse this time. No, this is stress binging. Moving is stressful, and while for the last two months I’ve been faithfully going to the gym, currently I am most active when confronted with Tex-Mex.

I spent the early part of this week starting my job at the American Refugee Committee while also looking for apartments. I had about 36 hours to see as many apartments as possible. I met a lot of really interesting characters. I stood on floors I was sure were going to move from under my feet, and I learned to date a building by its smell. In apartment hunting you’ll see more ugly than pretty, and after finally deciding on one great place, I went to claim it with my application only to find that I’d been beat to the desk thirty minutes earlier. I did settle on a great apartment in a neighborhood I’m happy to live in, but the push-pull of that apartment-hunting ride still has me feeling queasy.

The other fire still burning is my broken car. The head gaskets are warped, and the machine shop they sit in won’t give me a straight answer as to when they’ll be finished. I’m supposed to drive to Minneapolis in two days. My mechanic took my little car baby apart, and now pieces of its head are somewhere far from its body, held hostage by someone I can only guess is grinning in a greasy chair, stroking his cat and twisting his own whiskers.

In happier news, my job is already amazing. Monday, my first day at work in the Twin Cities, showed me a great time. That first-days-of-fall feeling was in the air. The sun was shining, and I spent the entire afternoon walking around the city and talking to strangers. I met great people who are going to be part of my first piece for ARC (I’ll share it here soon!). I was walking around the park, sunny day, friendly strangers, talking, filming, noticing, creating, and I thought, ‘OHMYGOD, THIS IS MY JOB.’ That’s a good feeling to have on day one, amirite?

Second positive is that great feeling Minneapolis gave me. I realized that I’ve never actually resided in a place whose population was greater than 120,000 people. And this big city gave me that urge, the one that compels you to sing, “Moving on up!” Which I did. While stuck in traffic. Because it was traffic on a beautiful street in a the biggest city I’ve ever lived in. I am currently filled with some joy about all of this, so despite the apartment-hunting spins and the uncertain transportation, I am still tapping my feet and smiling like I won the lottery. It feels like I kinda did.

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dream

It feels like I dreamt it. The whole thing, the entire two years. This is a phenomenon I was not expecting, this incredible distance, both physically and emotionally, from the place I was living in just days ago.

Before I left, it felt like there would be no end to tears, to this ripping at my heart as I left a small piece of myself in a home I loved. And now, honestly, I feel as if I woke up, and here I am in the house where I grew up, in a comfortable bed, fans blasting back the summer heat, endless entertainment of a cultural language I understand, a fridge stocked with food I know, and my flesh and blood family right here, hugs with whom feel as natural as breath.

Armenia, where did you go? I can hardly feel anything but panic when I think about people who were just within arms’ reach, a whole world that I swear I had in my sights a minute ago and now seems to have puffed into smoke. I might just believe it never happened if it weren’t for a Facebook chat with my Armenian counterpart or a phone call from a fellow volunteer, these faint whispers that my life there actually existed.

Why the distance? My friend and fellow volunteer who landed in Maine the same day I landed here, she and I talked about it over the phone. We thought that perhaps the absolute ease of such a familiar life might be distracting us from the change. We thought that maybe it would take some time to realize everything that had happened and all that it meant. Or perhaps we’re just in some kind of shock so severe that to take stock of the whole situation might be incapacitating.

Maybe there’s just so much to miss that I can’t grasp it all just yet.

Tomorrow, early in the morning, my mother and I are driving to the Louisiana bayou to visit her parents. There will be no internet or pool or gym to distract me. I am going to take my blog friend‘s advice and start quickly digging deep into memory and taking some notes on that Armenian life I was living. Perhaps I’ll start with names like Gayane, Artur, Arpine, and Liana and then work my way to memories from there.

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thank you; your gift is a rabbit-eared family

I woke up in a panic this morning. Five days left before I leave Stepanavan. Two of those days will be spent doing a camp in a village near here, so in truth, we’re talking three short days here before I cram everything I own, and something things Peace Corps owns, into a taxi and ride to the capital.

Good news, I did not stay sick, and Easter-In-June was a wild success.

Bad news, I don’t have time for a good post. I have pictures to get printed, camp materials to gather, unseen waterfalls to find, and flesh and blood people I need to reach out and touch to remind myself that I’m still here. I’m having that behind-glass feeling again that makes me want to touch everything before it becomes yesterday’s.

I will say that the last few days have included a taco dinner, uncountable and quickly eaten batches of chocolate chip cookies, Easter celebrations, visiting friends, games, long talks, and sunsets that make me cry. What am I saying? Everything is making me cry. Including the crying ladies at the grocery store, the long speeches about how they will miss me and never forget me, and the Clooker sitting down at the desk across from me, then immediately getting up to kiss me, pressing her tears-wet cheek to mine.

I’ve got things to get to. However, I do need to say that you are one of the main reasons I am here right now. I would never have finished Peace Corps with having you to share it with. I came here to put down some words, show my family some photos, and I found friends to write to, people who let share my love of this place. You win. I owe you big time.

Thank you for sticking around. Thank you for forgiving my faults. And thank you for letting me know you’re around, seeing me through this.

I’m not sure if I’ll write in the next week, with all the moving across the planet; however, I assure you that I’ll be writing about readjusting to Texas, and then the move to someplace new, Stateside or otherwise.

In the meantime, here’s a few photos which I promise are worth checking out, if only to see my landfamily wearing rabbit ears. They are amazing. Oh, good grief. The tears again.

a favorite American friend, visiting and playing nardi

kneading pizza dough with aven

americans and armenians heading out to the dasht

well, obviously, if you see an abandoned bus in the middle of nowhere, YOU GET IN

claire and heghmine

a favorite friend and her mom teaching us to make jingyalov hats (herbs bread)

our tatik is cooking; our imogen is dancing to enrique iglesias. enrique always makes us forget our work.

closing the jingyalov hats

jingyalov hats roasting on a stove-closed fire

my coworkers and i hiding in the trees

eating a strawberry. as cute as a strawberry.

eight

one of world vision's social workers

workers jumping. the one second from the left is the clooker!

a totally happy easter!

loot!

 

applying a foam rabbit "tatoo"

I will miss this place. A lot.

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somebody, turn off that light at the end of the tunnel

I returned to my Armenian town just days ago. Last time I was here, the night brought quarter size snow flakes, and the morning was covered in it eight inches deep.  I flew southwest where I ate mounds of Mexican and Thai and Vietnamese food, relished in Americanness like drag shows, Just Dance, and Thursday night gatherings around “Parks & Rec”.

Now I’m back in Armenia with just a few months before the end of my Peace Corps service, and I’m feeling some things.

1. I so much miss having a group, those friends you see every week for some show you love or at some favorite haunt. I can not wait to go home, reconnect to old friends, make some new ones. Texas, watch out; I’m about to go friend hunting.

2. I am terrified of my future. Job(s)? School? New me v. old me? I lay awake at night wishing all my questions were answered. Will the car I left behind still be broken? Can I survive temping in Austin for a while? Bigger and bigger questions bob to the surface. Here comes that moment I’ve been wondering about for two+ years.  There seems to be so much potential in my return home; can I harness it?

3. How will I handle ‘the missing’? I am utterly in love with this place.  My cottage is my own home in a way that no other building has ever been.  My friends here are so special to me, bring out so many parts of myself I didn’t know existed before their Armenian outing.  I love the mountains, the cool spring, the sunny mornings, the dinners in our office kitchen.  They say that returning home after Peace Corps is much harder than leaving in the first place.  One reason for sure will be saying goodbye to a life I will almost surely never live again.

My time here, which used to seem like a pool I could swim in, seems now like a small collection cupped in my two hands.

Every time I leave a place there is that feeling of deep richness, of knowing myself so much more, of loving the world more profoundly.  There is also a loss, a longing to hold onto something intangible, a sense of the temporal that cuts down ultimately to my knowledge of mortality.

Here it comes. A sweeping change.

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the one that got away

I have regrettable news to relate, but next to the people I see on the street everyday, you are the one(s) who keep(s) up with the Chicken.  But don’t worry, she didn’t die.

She moved.  That’s right, we got a divorce.  Me and Spring Chicken are no longer together.  It was an amiable split, I think.  She’d long ago stopped smearing her poop on me.  We were getting along really well in fact.  It was the neighbors who ultimately prompted the final severance.  For months they’ve been calling my landdad, telling him that their baby can’t sleep because my dog is crying.  The neighbors’ calls, the barking and the fecal minefield the Chicken was daily constructing around the raspberry patch (whoa, what!? The word raspberry has a “p” in it!?) were enough to get my landfamily to consistently give me a hard time about what a pain the dog was for them.

Funny thing was, when I started mentioning that I was looking for a new home for her, I had three immediate offers.  Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks she’s quite a catch.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I helped her move to her new home on the other side of town.  Her new family comes complete with a spindly, quirky grandmother, a jovial dad, a spunky mom, and a full-of-life young boy who invited all the neighborhood kids over to see the new dog immediately upon her arrival.  I left her in the back yard with a pile of bones and haven’t heard from her since.  The spunky mom said she’s been a great dog already, quiet at night and playful with the young boy.

I left her there the day before I left on a 10 day jaunt around the country from which I have recently returned.  The great thing about the Chicken’s new home is that her owners are already friends of mine who new her for months of her stay with me.  They were thrilled to adopt her.  They started calling her Cheeko within minutes.  And they have invited me to take her on walks and hikes whenever I’d like.

All this of course does not diminish the hole I feel after giving her up.  Dog-lovers, eye-roll away, but the truth is that no matter how much I enjoyed our walks and the lap-naps and the loving  how’s-your-dog questions from townspeople on the street, she just didn’t fit.  Having crossed over my Peace-Corps-service halfway mark, I took a long ponder at how I want the rest of my time here to look, and I don’t want a year of my landfamily giving me a hard time about the dog they didn’t really want to live in their yard, a year of trying to get my coworkers to like her, a year of people telling me to keep her away because a dog hair might get into their mouths and kill them.  I’m not sure I want to continue my inevitable years of moving around with a dog in tow.  I got into the Dog Deal not really knowing if it would be a good fit for me, and despite both of our attempts to love on each other, it wasn’t. So I found her a good home, and I accept the stomach knots that creep up when I go out into a puppyless yard in the morning.

A fellow PCV, John, surprised me last night when I told him about it.  He said, “Well, she’s not dead.” I raised an eyebrow. “Really, Brent, with your track record, she’s lucky to have lived with you and then ended up in a new home.  She didn’t die like most of your pets.  She’s the one that got away.”

“Oh my gosh, you’re right,” I said.  I hate to say it, but she’s the only pet I’ve ever owned that left me unscathed.  Call it self-acquittal if you want, but when John said that, all I felt was a huge sense of relief.  I’m glad she’s got a good family, and while I have some real regrets (something akin to but opposite of buyer’s remorse) I feel like she’s going to have a good life.  We’re both going to be better off now because I took the chance to adopt her then.

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Toes out over the edge

I don’t know why I beg for the hopelessly cheesy soundtrack of violins followed a couple of scenes later by plucky folk, but I do. When sitting on the slick and suddenly expansive wood floor of my empty room, I want to hear the violins in a slow moving tone, pulling out the tears with a gentle guiding tug. Then, a couple of days later when I am driving down the road in my new-life-chapter location, the finger picking will match the sway, the hopefull movement, the wind in my hair as I lean out the window of a moving car, white teeth to the sun, all the world in my eyes.

It all could come with a disc. These moments would be colored with song. Some of them were:
-Last Saturday night a few of my close friends and I grabbed my change jar and floated to the dime arcade. There are no great games here. But they all cost a dime. On a few dollars you can roll the skeeball, shoot hoops, have an air hockey tournament and get a snack at the play-til-you-win candy crane. After gathering our tickets I got a pair of oversized orange sunglasses and an splatting egg ball. But the real prize was a suggestion on the way home from my backseated friend who yelled out over the music that since we were downtown we should pull over and dance. We did, ending the night sweaty with a few onlookers and all of us crowded around Kelly who was impressively deep voiced miming the end of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”.
-Being in my empty room. Yes, I thought violins sitting there on the wood floor.
-Today, hanging out with my little sister, who was skipping school to hang out with me. I encouraged this of course, because I’d hoped we would make sock puppets. I wanted to spend the day making some puppets and rehearsing a show the two of us could put on for our family. Am I an awesome big brother? I didn’t do it because I wanted to be great. I did it because I’ve always wanted to be a muppeteer. And maybe because I thought she’d think it was cool. We made the puppets. “Thriller” again made the show. And Michael Jackson-Sock was smo. King. The sock was getting it. The family laughed.
-Hugging my oldest sister in the driver way. Sometimes we feel the world spinning, and we are thrown by the pull of it. I think my sister’s life has thrown her, and our hug felt like the world could settle down, if just in that moment. Like when I lay down on the floor sometimes and stare at the ceiling. I feel it in my core; everything feels like its slurring around me until all the sudden it all slow-brakes to a halt and settles. Our hug did that.

I am leaving for Panama in a couple of days. Actually the day ater tomorrow I will be there. I don’t really know what’s coming. I feel on edge, really. On the edge of my life about to jump. Like the first time I bungee jumped in New Zealand, having never seen it done, having no idea how it really worked, no idea if the cord would hold, and if it did, to what anchor.

The guy said to me on that Taupo cliff, “Alright now, just walk your toes out over the edge and have a go.”

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In conclusion, I’d like to begin with a quote…

I will formally begin leaving here, with this post.

First, my current position.  I am sitting here in my underwear on a Saturday morning just about to head into September.  My computer is surrounded by loose compact discs, sketch paper, letters, magazines and somewhere in here are three check books I began using, each as a replacement for the other as I could not find the previously started books among the pile.  My room is in a similar state; the white $10-at-a-garage-sale leather couch is covered in a clothes blob that turns over like a lake (but with a fresher smell) about once a week as I use all the underwear within it.  Creaky shorts hang stiff under a beach towel on the bathroom racks having dried some time ago.  Around ten or so toilet paper rolls wait in front of the porcelain chair where I am often sitting, using the time to think about how I can creatively use said cardboard rolls, or rather, how I can excuse their being there.

This place is in such a state because I am leaving.  I have lived in Abilene, Texas long enough.  I have gotten lost in every corner of town.  I have shopped every thrift store for years over, made myself a regular at at least four restaurants, attended perhaps every cultural event in this place. I have tried to no avail to make a habit of running the two-mile Lunsford Trail around ACU’s campus and its dirt-rut predecessor.  I have attended three different churches ‘regularly’. I have made friends with unmeasurable quality. I have come back to Abilene more times than I can count because here I have lived the leap into my twenties.

I came back for the last time a couple weeks ago, and now I’ve got boxes stacked outside my door waiting to come in and carry everything out of here.

In a few weeks I’ll be going to Panama for some months, then hopefully India for some, and finally, with much providence and diligence, Peace Corps for two years next summer.

Should you be interested, you will hopefully be able to live some of this with me, read some of it with me at least.

We’ll start with packing.

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