whirlwind trappings

Yes, I am still in a whirlwind, but I am embracing the crazy ride I’m on. I can already tell you that my 2011 is a wild, wild wave.  I am currently doing a lot of looking in, doing a lot of personal writing. I can’t say how long the void of posts will last; I can tell you that this introspective writing is so good for me right now.

As I tend to do in blog-lulls, I offer some other more interesting places to check out on the web for now.  This round-up includes so many things that are feeding my soul.

1. Thao & Mirah- Went to their concert. Fell in love.  I love women voices.  I love people who sing head-to-toe. I love people who throw themselves away and jump straight into passion if only for a set.  While their concert was more aggressive and raw, this Benetar cover is an example of why they are unbelievable.  Please listen.

2. Sleeping at Last- Their song ‘Side by Side’ is so large in scope and so full of awe I am floored every time.  This is exactly the song and more so exactly the album I need right now.  I just happened to click on their link, downloaded their album, and now I swim in it. And thanks to Derek Webb’s Noise Trade, you can download the album for free and make a donation to the band. Find Sleeping at Last here and sink in.

3. Here’s two similar things I saw first on Best Little Bookshelf in Texas. I love books, the physicality of having a story passed right to me.  And I love these two projects that speak the corporal and visual love of a printed work. See a Lithuanian bookstore’s ad campaign here and enjoy a longer exploration at Corpus Librus. And thanks, BLBIT.

4. I will admit that I don’t read as much as I love books. This I blame on my love for the screen, the need for movies and tv to soothe, to inspire, to cut deep.
For cutting deep, I’ve turned to the primetime soap Grey’s Anatomy. The first few seasons which showed an ideal group friendship got me through some very cold, pretty lonely first nights in Armenia when what I was missing my own group of comrades. And yesterday I finally got to see the sixth season through the end. Yeah, I wept through those last two episodes.  But hitting more personally, a single-episode patient said very tenderly that “Loving someone is a choice you make everyday”. Common, I know, but a reminder that love’s most important decisions are made, not yesterday, not tomorrow, but today.

Ongina, from Season One, who's status as HIV+ is a stepping stone to a performance that challenges us to love all of ourselves.

For inspiration, I have latched onto, stay with me, RuPaul’s Drag Race.  Reality TV. Drag Queens. Ru. A perfect storm, really. But, unlike most reality tv, this is a show that represents the pinnacle of its subject. Drag will not become more mainstream than this.  And as such, the ladies are giving it all on the stage.  There is no contract coming; there is no bigger stage.  And these girls are bringing it.  And as for inspiration, I watched the reunion show after Season 2.  I saw human beings who have dared to explore parts of themselves, their silliness, their anger, their feminine power, parts that much of the world would tell them to box up and bury.  I saw these people who dare to embrace all of themselves, letting all of their parts, even those they might fear, speak out in their lives.  These are people looking to love themselves and share that.
And let’s be real, I like the bitchy drama. (Thanks to ExtraHotGreat for turning me onto this show. Watch it all online here.)

And to soothe, I turn on Parks & Recreation. Before the new episodes aired in January, NPR’s Linda Holmes pleaded that people watch this show, that the writing was the best she’d ever seen, so tightly written for each character. Critically, it’s a easy win. Basically, I guffaw.  And guffawing feels really good.

5. Finally, I stay afloat when I write. I recently bought Alice LaPlante’s printed short-course The Making of a Story.  It’s challenging and caring.  I’m a couple chapters in and I know it’s a project I’m riding through the summer.

That’s quite enough for now. I promise to come back soon. But until then, keep up a good cultural diet with me. I’ll see you soon.

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oh, buds on trees!

A couple of days ago, I saw something discarded, stopped, pulled out the camera and took a lot of pictures.  I think for some reason I felt just like that umbrella.  Maybe you can see what I mean:

I am tired of having to think so much about how and how much I can walk.  I hate counting the blocks and wondering if I can make it to the grocery store and back on my own.  I don’t want to feel so useless.

But, seasons pass in years, as they do in months, days, minutes, and now I am feeling an upswing from spring.  Those tiny buds, those blossoming cherry trees, those barely showing leaves and their earliest salutations.  It’s wonderful how the breaking of spring tends to break a monotonous gloom.  I am happy to be walking in the sun.  I am happy to be here in the US, going to the grocery store again and again.  I am happy to be healing, slowly but surely.  I am happy for parks, for people walking their dogs, for cupcakes, for late night talks with friends, for being alive and able to enjoy.

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My sister, my tiny bright star of a sister, called me on Friday night to tell me she made third bass drum in marching band.  The thought of her lanky frame carrying that big round drum, gliding along in formation around the field, thumping out rhythms with memory and concentration; the thought of these already short years she has before her in a marching band, the bus rides to games, the late night uniform storage, the contests, the cadences, she has so much to look forward, too.

I am bursting with pride.

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I bought a book last night,  My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me edited by Kate Bernheimer. I wasn’t going to buy more books while I was here (WHO AM I KIDDING?).   This book, though, almost creeped up and into my arms.  It’s an anthology of stories inspired by fairy tales from around the world, written by some great names like Joyce Carol Oates, Neil Gaiman, and Michael Cunningham.  EXCITED.

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healing

I have never concentrated so hard on walking.  The brace is off as of today.  My shrimpy little leg with the still swollen knee is free like a wobbly newborn calf.  Walking from the hotel to CVS, from the Kennedy Center to Georgetown, I almost yell down at my leg, “CONCENTRATE!”  Left, right, left, right, heel, toe, NO LIMPING.  Relearning to walk is grating my patience.

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My time in DC is creeping to a close.  I’ve got a list of things to eat, see, watch, and read.  I’ve written down a few items to take back to Armenia.  I’ve made some friend here at the hotel, other PCVs who are here on medevac, and we all agree that we’re tired of being here.  We’re ready for our normal lives again, that is, our lives back in foreign places.

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Everyone in Armenia is going to tell me that I’ve gotten fat. “Chaghatsel es!” they’ll say. And they’ll be right.  Last night I ate chips and queso for dinner.  I followed that with white powdered donuts.  The night before that dinner was Cadbury cream egg, followed by Cheez-Its, followed by another Cadbury cream egg.  I’m naming the new belly roll America.

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For the first time in a while I’m reading a book that has me in love with the characters, the plot, the language, and the setting.  Bel Canto by Ann Patchett.  I’m not finished yet, but the first 120 pages have been brilliant.

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i’d like to stay alive in the woods

I am an undisciplined soul.  I have a lot of free time, and as you have seen, I haven’t been writing much.  Instead I’ve been binging on entertainment. I am admittedly a pop culture junkie, and here in the land of plenty I have been feasting on such wild delicacies as How I Met Your Mother and RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Thankfully (though sometimes I curse it), the internet at Georgetown Suites creeps almost to a halt every time I try to load a new episode, so eventually I give up and grab a book.  My friend John who is very soon hiking the Appalachian Trail bought a tome on survival which he left in my backpack, putting it there to keep it from the rain.

This was fate.  I’ve fallen in love.

How To Stay Alive In the Woods by Bradford Angier has swept me off my feet.  This simple survival book has surprisingly invited that tiny kid inside out into the forest to wonder at the world, and at me in it.  It serves that cliche, tapping into my inner 8-year-old boy so ready to follow a trail of ants or chase frogs into the creek.

Written in 1954, the language is immediate and full of wonder.  I have never heard of the delights of the bayberry nutlet, and what a dream to consider grinding acorns into flour and toasting cakes on a hot stone.  Munching dandelion salad and tracking beavers feels altogether adventurous.  Reading it, imagining myself considering fashioning fish hooks from twigs or considering a batch of kinnikinic, I can’t help but wonder at a life in the woods. And then when Angier delivers heading after heading like, “What about frogs?” I can’t help but chuckle again and again.  What about frogs, indeed.

“Amphibians,” he says, “can be hooked with fishing tackle and small fly. They can be caught with string and a bit of cloth, the former being given a quick tug when the later is taken experimentally into the mouth.”  It’s Angier’s language, too, that is making me swoon.  His structure appears like his methods, keeping without an ounce of waste while remaining absolutely dignified.  We’re talking frog munching here, and he has the gall to give the whole thing a regal rhythm.

I suppose, too, in the confusing state of being rushed from one of Earth’s hemispheres to the next, I rather enjoy the idea of disappearing to a life that is stripped of confusing developments and instead a world made up of simply me and the wild.

“You can hunt for a month, even in ordinarily good country, and see only one moose.  Your life can depend on your securing that one moose.” As simple as that.  One moose.  No medevacs or job interviews or check out lines or Zuckerburgs.  Just the moose, and my securing it.

“You may be in an automobile that is stalled by mishap or storm in an unsettled area,” Angier warns, “Perhaps you’ll be a passenger in an aircraft that has to make a forced landing.  Perhaps you’ll be shipwrecked.”

Alright, alright, I’m not going to crash my ship into island rocks anytime soon, and I’ll always be sure to tell people where I’m going lest I get pinned in a crevasse. Right now though, thanks to the wonder of books, I am certainly going to keep imagining myself staying alive in the woods.

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mold tastes like dirt and ghosts eat cake

Spring Chicken is quite upset with me.  It has been raining for a few days.  Rain makes mud.  Mud gets stuck in paws and then leaves stains on clothes and tracks on the office’s tile floor.  I am not allowed to keep her inside the cottage and bringing her mud ridden to work would be the end of her office life altogether.  So I leave her behind bars, and she screams at me and shivers in her little cage.

Guilt is not a good way to start (multiple) days.  It is also little use to follow them with days of Reneging On Your Plans and Wondering What You Should Do With Your Days/Life and General Work Dissatisfaction and Further Whining About All of the Above Plus My Current Ant Problem.

Since my water only runs from 10am-1pm, I stay home two mornings a week to wash dishes and laundry and myself.  This morning after such cleaning, I made myself brunch, two egg and chicken wiener tacos and a glass of water.  The first bite I noticed a new flavor, a distinct taste of dirt.  This was my last piece of lavash so I attributed the taste to staleness.  However, during a later chew I noticed the blue-green dots on the second taco which could not be attributed to staleness.  These were signs of a new life, one I would rather not ingest.  I searched the taco in hand for such colors, and finding none I continued eating while ripping away the offending half of taco 2.  Getting towards the end of A Serious Man, a movie about the crescendoing crumble of man’s life and emotional health, I picked up taco 2 and began to eat.  I tasted the dirt again, and chose to believe in staleness instead of growth.  It wasn’t until taco 2 punched my soft pallet with a foul wave of dirt-taste that I looked down at the lavash which was now chicken-pocked on the inside with blue-green dots and had a final half-blot of mold on a piece hanging down into the taco’s inside.  I ejected the other half-blot from my mouth along with have chewed bits of egg and chicken wiener.  I heard Spring Chicken outside in her cage whining to be let go, and I joined her with a few small whimpers of my own.

That said, take heart, friends.  There are patches of sunlight coming in through the clouds.  Consider these rose-colored bits o’ life:

1.  I paused in the middle of writing this blog because my coworker, Davit, wanted to quiz me in Armenian words for fruits and vegetables.  The only one I didn’t recognize was a mysterious yellow melon I’m not sure I’ve ever eaten.  Still better than word recognition was the exchange.  It feels good to have friends.  In a few minutes I’m going to go have tea with them.

2.  I am consistently making pretty dang incredible choclate chip cookies.  If you visit my cottage sometime, I will make them for you.  (However, it seems that my town is without milk.  I found one Russian milk product but the aftertaste is so much of old cheese I can’t stomach it.)

3.  I’m reading my first book on Buddhist practice, one by Director of Gampo Abbey, Pema Chödrön.  Based on this reading, I don’t think I could ever really become buddhist; I am much too attached to narrative thanks to my Judeo-Christian roots.  But besides basic meditation practice and an overall admonition to love all parts of yourself and lighten up, I found some real gems including my new favorite religious ritual, Feeding the Ghosts.  Chödrön talks about Ghosts as those negative aspects of you that are often unreasonable, the kind of feeling that is there when you wake up and eats away at you all day.
The idea of Feeding the Ghosts is that you invite those Ghosts, those difficult and hard-to-reason feelings close to you.   Ritually, you do this by offering them cake.  Literally, you put out a tiny cake each morning or offer it during a small ceremony.  You put out a cake for your Ghosts.  From the book: “There is even an incantation that says, ‘Not only do I not want you to go away, you can come back any time you like  And here, have some cake.’”
I am so in love with this idea for it’s hilarity and it’s message I think I’m going to start putting out cakes as soon as possible.  But I have to learn how to make cake.  I wonder if Ghosts like chocolate chip cookies.

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2009makers

Tell me you forgot that I said I’d post a bunch of lists about the decade and the year and resolutions, etc.  I still may post some of them, but a bunch of lists are not really on the way.  However, what is on the way, in just a few sentences actually, is a list of what made up my 2009.  I’d say it was a significant year, on that marked a lot of change, one that solidified some same-olds, and one that will likely be a turning point for me.  So without further ado, my 2009makers:

1. Moving

my roost in kolkata

2009 began with me gearing up for the year after a couple months gearing down on the island in Panama in late 2008.  I had just moved home and was enjoying small town Texas in every way, making some cash at  Mom’s beading table, celebrating an exciting inauguration with the pint-sized sister.  But soon it was off to Kolkata where I lived for a couple of months.  There was teaching of ultimate frisbee to my brothers in the slum, copious amounts of carrom board playing and mango chop eating, and there was the most heart-wrenching cry of my entire life, right there in front of my indian Dada and Didi.  Then it was back home for an intense, take-it-all-in two months, and finally a big heaping move to Armenia.  Through the year I’ve moved from one country to another 4 times, been in six different countries (the U.S., India, England, Austria, Armenia and Georgia), and lived with four different families (including two host family stays in Armenia).
In 2010 I think I’ll be settling-in, planning on staying in the country for the whole year.  It will be the longest I’ve gone without leaving by plane to another country since I graduated high school.  And it’s not even my country.   But at least I’ll be settled for a bit.

2. New Holidays

a renegade band of colored kids on a holi parade

This year I have new favorite holidays.  The one that will stick out as not only a favorite holiday (just under Christmas with the fam, of course) but also my favorite travelling experience, is Holi.  Of course, I’ve only experienced a Kolkata version, but that version was so moving, that I will forever hope to recreate it and likely never will.
Just under that, I’d have to say, is Armenian Nor Tari.  The hospitality is wonderfully overwhelming; days and days of being an honored guest feels down-right humbling and sustaining at the same time.

This was also the first year I’ve experienced holidays dedicated to a town (re: Yerevan Day, Stepanavan Day, Vanadzor Day, all of which I celebrated).  There was also some holiday back in September, I think, through which we celebrated the Armenian church finding Jesus’s cross.  I took home some basil, but to be honest, I’m really not sure what all that was about.

flat me on a pumpkin

This was also the year in which, because I was missing my traditional versions, my family holidays were recreated in new ways.  A paper me was present during Halloween festivities while I hosting my own version with my new Armenian friends. (Flat Me also made it to Thanksgiving and Christmas, too!) Thanksgiving was a 100 person celebration at the All Volunteer conference, and the 2009 American Christmas was both an undesirable in-country event, and one that I will hold dear to my heart thanks to Skype.

3. Family Love

half the Kolkatan family sitting with new dishes in their partially constructed new home

First, I’ll say that this year I got lovin’ not only from my own family, but also from families in the UK (who housed me and fed me when I was stranded in England), India (in so many ways I can’t even count), and Armenia (through dance parties, games of UNO,  laughter and more laughter).

Still, it was a unique and amazing year to be me amongst my wonderful family.  Certainly this isn’t the first year in which I’ve received love from my family.  I’m one of the lucky one’s who’s gotten incredible love since the plus sign appeared (or however that worked in the ’80′s).  But this year was a year so full of family love that it deserves a list within a list.  So, Ways My Family Has Made Me Feel Unbelievable Lucky To Be Alive:

-In 2008, instead of having a usual gift-exchange-type Christmas, my family pooled money and sent it with me to Kolkata in January ’09.  With it, we were able to help Kolkata City Mission build a home for one family in an urban slum.   And I was blessed enough to be both in the living room when my family gave me that gift, and in the new living room with that Indian family.  There’s one 2009 moment I will never forget.
-There was also the parents help with getting ready for Armenia, the shoes, the sleeping bag, the million little things that would make my stay in Armenia so so much better.
-The Farewell Fishfry thrown by my family and my Dad’s brother and sister-in-law, and my grandmother.  The family gathered some of my favorite hometowne-ers for the fiesta.  Love.
-The first softball game in which the little sister pitched.  She didn’t walk a batter ’til the last inning.  And the big sister and I sat and cheered more than I’ve ever cheered for anything, and I forgot anyone else existed outside the three of us and the one striking-out.
-The daily emails from my brother that have kept my soul alive.
-The skype convos late at night (early in my morning) with my Texas fam.
-Packages from home stuffed with the most awesome gifts, like refried beans, socks, cribbage board, flash drives, sesame street coloring book, chips and dip, candy canes and puppy chow.
-Facebook albums of Flat Me enjoying holidays at home.
-Texts, phone calls, emails, letters, and a halloween card that had many Armenian’s giggling and had me explaining the word ‘tentacle’.
-And more.

4. Reading Reneissance

This has been a little while in the making, but I’d say this year has seen me reading more than I have in a long while.  It’s no 133 books or anything, but I’ve read more books this year than I have in any year since probably the sixth grade (I was a REAL reader from ages 5-12.  Then I just… wasn’t.)  This year I’ve found a new favorite (Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury) and found in books a revived inkling to write more and more and more (Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott).
I’ve also been completely inspired by blog writers and have, in 2009, become a regular reader of a few.  Perhaps its because I’m way the heck away from my culture. But blogs have been the center of my reading reneissance this year and have made me hopeful about the future of the written word.  You’ll find my favorite reads on the right, and here are my best 2009 discoveries:
- Monkey See, NPR’s pop-culture blog.  She’s funny in my favorite, witty, we-should-really-get-over-ourselves-slash-appreciate-each-other kind of way.  And she’s ok with loving Survivor.  Check.
-/Film, read this and you will forever be at the cusp of cinema trivia.
-Circle Me Confused, in the world of Peace Corps Blogs, I really like this one.  Simple, unpretentious, charming.  More blogs should have that kind of voice.
-Hootenannie, as far as blogs-as-journals go, this one is welcoming.  Processing some gritty stuff online can be tricky, but right now she’s doing it with charm, wit, and a determination to keep sane.  And among bloggers who are my actual friends in non-virtual life, I think she’s kind a trend.  Like when a group of friends all love something unique, like fingerless gloves or Parcheesi.  We all love reading Annie’s blog.  And we all want to/are excited about meeting her.   Maybe one day I will?  Until then, reading on.

Alright, that’s enough words on 2009.  Now, onward and upward into 2010…

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The incredibly-cold is coming.

In the morning I usually walk to work, a routine activity that has become a more frigid exprience with each passing day.  It is no longer sufficient to wear my knit gloves and stuff those covered hands in my pockets.  They are still cold under all those layers.  I certainly don‘t live in the coldest part of Armenia.  There’s no snow on the ground here yet, just crunchy ice puddles.  But on my walk to work I look up at the surrounding mountains and watch as the white blanket of snow is slowing stretching down the mountainside and into our valley.  It’s only cold now.  The incredibly-cold is coming.

However, the cold has led to some exciting new things.  Family time, for example, has taken a warm turn.  My room is in the cold, sunless north corner of the house, and while I appreciate the space of my own, I don’t really welcome the sight of my breath in my room.  So, I venture into the foryer where nightly sits my host mother and sister around a crude gas heater.  They sit on stools made from short two-by-fours, chew sunflower seeds and watch, through a doorway, soap operas playing on the tv in a distant corner of the living room.  So, on the coldest nights, I grab my book, sit on the foryer couch, and read.  I like their company, and now that my Armenian has improved, I can chat with them about the weather, about work, about life in Texas, about my family.  We sip hot tea and tell jokes.  And when their gaze wanders back to the Armenian soaps, mine returns to my book.

This month is looking to be full of changes.  The incredibly-cold is coming.  I’m likely moving to my own place mid-month (which means exciting adventures into cooking for myself and going houseware shopping in Yerevan).  I’m headed to Tbilisi soon, and I’m starting work on some really exciting new projects.  Some A-18′s are bound to start getting their invitations to join PC-Armenia this month and will start popping up on the interweb.  And I’ll be going through my first Christmas without my family around (I’ll save my feelings about that for another post).

In general I will say that I am LOVING life here.  Now all I need is all my family to come here and bring some refried beans.

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