it is in those moments of stillness that the adventurer’s mind begins to unsettle.
i have been back at home in the midwest since august 24th. so going on four weeks. it has been jam-packed with a wedding, family labor day vacation, theatre production, non-profit fundraiser, high school dance team kick-a-thon, housewarming potluck, and of course the interspersed coffee dates with those who manage to catch me.
but now the waters have calmed, and i am left with routine. but routine in a place that is no longer my city. it is not a routine i can slip into. yoga, climbing, and townshend’s on repeat. it is someone else’s routine.
i am car-less and hanging out with my madre in her farm house in the middle of the beautiful cornfields of huntley, illinois. i am an hour from my chicago friends. i am an hour from my saint charles friends. i am an hour from my dad’s house. i am an hour from my sister’s house. (not that it’s relevant, but i feel bad leaving him out…i am five hours from my brother’s house.)
but being cut off is good sometimes.
after a 70-hour week of planning and facilitating and designing and executing a $100k fundraiser, i am playing catch up for my other clients. so being grounded to any ounce of routine is good.
but being grounded makes you want to be ungrounded.
all day as i stare at my computer and plow through my to do list, my mind tries to figure out what the next chapter holds. i know one thing.
thursday i fly into salt lake city and then head to maple canyon with colby.
i have not climbed the entire time i have been home. i have actually done very little minus some yoga here and there. and yet, i am about to throw myself into two months of climbing rocks. vagabonding from utah to kentucky. and then back to portland via vegas? (that part is still open to edits.)
when you are living the plans, they seem fine. you don’t worry. you feel settled in your adventurous ways. living in the now is easy because your now is pretty awesome.
but when you are in the moments in between…
when you stare at your computer counting down the days until you will be staring at cobblestone instead, it is hard to live in the now. to stay focused on the ever-growing collection of tasks in black ink on that white piece of computer paper.
but you know that if you stay focused now, you will have less to do then…
however, plans change, and now i must start this post with this…
i was asleep on a blow-up mattress at the foot of my mother’s bed. there was nowhere else to sleep due to the endless stacks of boxes filling up the living room in my mom’s new red farm house. she had somehow heard me stirring from downstairs, and as i opened my eyes there she was, hovering over me.
she had that know-it-all smirk on her face that all mothers get when they think they have solved their children’s problems. there was something in her hand, but i couldn’t quite make it out through the glassy coating still sleepily covering my eyes.
“i read your blog,” she said with an empathetic undertone.
oh gee. i immediately knew where this was going. i quickly explained in a half-awake stupor that no mom, i am not wallowing in the fact that i am single, and no mom, the blog was not cause for worry. she stood there nodding and waiting for her moment.
“i have just what you need.”
she revealed a christian science pamphlet from behind her back. “a letter to someone in love” i believe it is called. a short reading about finding love in god and separating material love from spiritual love. i had seen and read the booklet a handful of times before (because she had already given it to me several times throughout my life). i told her this fact and watched her know-it-all smirk rapidly descend into defeat. i again had to dive into explaining where the blog was going. what my point was. for her to not feel pity over her daughter’s random rantings.
i think we are on the same page now. and so i shall continue with what my point was…
perfection gets harder as we get older. as expectations develop, we consequently expect things. (crazy concept i know.) our idea of perfection now meets head-to-head in a dark alley with all our expectations.
so i think we left off at college.
those four years where we are put into a holding tank called a “campus” and left to soak up everything we can. knowledge, friends, lovers, professional connections, hobbies, oh, and more expectations.
pause.
i just reread what i wrote last night. another rambling saga about my relationships that didn’t really lead to the point i told my mom i was trying to make. so i deleted it and am going to end this two part blog post with this…
my list clearly stated that i would never date a smoker. i get headaches from cigarette smoke. my last serious boyfriend smoked marlboro reds. a lot of them. and he was good for me. not what i wanted, but what i needed at the time.
and yet, after every relationship ends we return to the mold. our expectations grow higher, stronger. the image of perfection finds definition, and it is this definition that makes finding that perfection even harder.
some of you may have seen this recent article about us poor millennial yuppies. our expectations for work and life have far exceeded our reality. we are dreamers. you told us we were special and could do anything. we believed you. and now we are not giving you grandchildren because we can’t find that perfect soulmate.
the search filter on our hearts is a bit narrower. we clicked to open the “advanced search” feature, but after filling out all the desired criteria and clicking the search button, the beachball won’t stop spinning. the hourglass icon keeps telling us to wait.
just force quit. pretty sure that fixes everything and lets you start from a blank slate. before you carved that perfect person.
i have an unintentional habit of laughing at everything. loud outbursts at inappropriate times. uncontrollable silent heaving with deep gasping inhales. awkward chuckles that make me shutter when i press replay in my head immediately after the incident.
some people find it entertaining. some people find it annoying. some people find it offensive. some people.
regardless of their internal reaction, the external response is always the same: sara, what’s so funny?
it’s all about context. or lack thereof.
we’ve all done it before. you walk into a party and see a group of your friends. as you walk up all you hear is susie say: so i took the horse to the dry cleaners.
what? you butt in.
warning: this blog is going downhill from here. it is almost 2am. i just watched the newest episode of dexter and of course, i can’t sleep. although dexter didn’t kill anyone this episode, so maybe i’ll fall asleep faster than usual.
but it’s true. we take things out of context pretty regularly.
we could be skimming the pages of a book and only catch part of a sentence.
we could be tuning into a radio station during the middle of a segment.
we could be picking up the phone receiver to make a call and realize someone else is already on the line.
or how about butt dials? those always leave you completely clueless about the situation on the other end of the call.
in my case, it is an almost purposeful dissolving of context. plucking the parts that make me smile out of the whole. placing periods where i see fit, even if the speaker continues a second later turning my assumed period into a comma or semicolon.
i’ve had this pointed out to me in conversation with friends and strangers recently. i’ve also noticed it in myself recently.
last week, i stayed at my friend’s friends’ house in the echo park neighborhood of los angeles. (and i have no clue how to apostrophe-ate that properly.) upon their coffee table was a book about surviving in the wilderness. not the kind you would bring with you in the wilderness to actually survive, but the kind that you would have on your ikea coffee table in los angeles.
i sat next to my friend on the couch as she mindlessly flipped through the pages. i didn’t want to read over her shoulder, but my eyes quickly scanned the page open closest to me. all i got was this:
if you have a gun and enough time…
there was definitely more to the sentence. there was definitely more to the page. but why would i want to read further after a thought like that?!
it was like one of those would you rather questions or college entrance short answer essay prompts.
if you had a gun and enough time…what would you do? what could you do? what should you do?
i’m sure if i had read on i would have found out what you could do. probably sit and wait and shoot some small game to roast over the fire the book taught you how to build in chapter two.
but where is the fun in that?
and so i build my own context. a choreography of words. subjectively choosing where to place other people’s punctuation to give myself the most entertainment. you might not mean to say what i hear, but i suppose it’s all contextual anyways.
give it a try. it will leave you inappropriately outbursting alongside me. and two outbursters are always better than one.
i have always been the type of person who cannot accomplish anything in a messy space. in college, i would delay writing paper after paper by first doing my laundry, then sweeping my floors, and perhaps making my bed. i might even go so far as to do the dishes, and i loathe doing the dishes. it never felt like procrastination though. perhaps it was. perhaps it still is. but i just like writing in a clean space. i like to be distraction-less. allowing my eyes to find nothing array when they wander from the white rectangle of pixels illuminating my poorly lit bedroom.
for over a week, i let the rainbow tiled floor of my friend’s borrowed bedroom remain covered with my endless piles of clothes. when i set out to organize, i inevitably first take on the role of hurricane sara. scattering items over every inch of open floor space. then piles begin to form. then counting ensues. and then…
…it sits.
…it overwhelms.
…it loses priority…
…until it doesn’t.
i finally came back to my clothing purge. putting a number to all the bottoms in my wardrobe. all the leftovers. and now i have a mostly accurate calculation of the utter ridiculousness of my twenty-six years of overconsumption. here goes nothing:
sweaters: 37
cardigans: 7
long sleeve: 23
dressy long sleeve: 27
short sleeve: 21
nice t-shirts: 19
t-shirts: 58
tanktops: 26
workout tops: 19
hoodies: 18 total tops = 255
jeans: 15
shorts/capris: 11
pants: 12
dress pants: 4
work out pants: 13
work out shorts: 14
leggings: 4
pajama pants: 10
skirts: 21 total bottoms =104
yes. i could go 138 days (104 days with bottoms plus the 34 days of dresses) and never wear a duplicate article of clothing except underwear and socks. pretty impressively disgusting.
although i found some old gems. i found some hidden pieces of hideous. i found some memories. i found some nightmares. i found myself drifting back into the exact moments that i had acquired those items. it gave retail therapy a whole new meaning for me.
like that beautiful cobalt blue satin dress that i mentioned in my last blog post. i bought it in 2008 for a fancy valentine’s day dinner at a fancy restaurant in a fancy hotel. the one where i was definitely over dressed but did not care at all because i was so in love that no one else in the room mattered. (ex protected in this modified version of a prom photo.)
it has been over five years, and i have never had an opportunity to wear that dress again. it hangs in its plastic dress bag and occasionally gets taken out and tried on.
do you keep it? or do you let it go?
or how about the really awesome fleece zebra pajama pants that are the only piece of wearable clothing that i have ever made entirely by myself? freshman year of high school in fashion design class with mrs. kroll. 2001. those pants are 12 years old. they still keep me warm. they still stand out in a crowd. and hey, a high school senior i had a crush on told me they made my ass look good. so that’s important right?
do you keep them? or do you let them go?
or there is that one skirt that sat in the window of anthropology for a month. he told me i would love it, and when i saw it, i loved it. the price tag was way too rich for my blood at the time. but as luck may have it, a year later at an anthropology in california, there it was…on double clearance…with a very small dirt smudge (for which they discounted it even further). i bought it without a second thought. i think it was around $30. a year or two later and the tags are still on it.
do you keep it? or do you let it go?
this purge has been an exercise in realizing who i am and what kind of clothes i actually wear, what kind of clothes i actually need. i am a self-employed creative that spends every free minute participating in some form of physical activity. what that means?
i do not usually stray far from sundresses, yoga pants, jeans, and v-neck tees.
so why do i have six formal dresses and four pairs of dress pants and ten pairs of heels?
i am learning to answer that question.
they tell you to “dress the part” (or some other cliche variation of this phrase) when you are younger.
i spent preschool through eighth grade with about fifteen people in my class at any given time. the dress code was two pages long. don’t wear strongly scented lotions or perfumes. no “swishy” pants. t-shirts must be tucked in. every monday is dress-up day. no jeans unless it is jeans day. no nail polish. no make up. blah blah blah.
it was the nineties. fashion was not really something that penetrated our fifty acre wooded campus. we wore sweater vests that were pre-sewn to the collared white shirts below them. we wore shiny, synthetic dresses with thick, wool tights to escape a dress code violation. inevitably, i always got a dress code violation. it’s hard to remember and adhere to two pages of rules while staring into your closet at 6am.
and then i started high school in a white upper class suburb of chicago. i quickly learned to “dress the part.” i sucked up my friends’ secondhand name brands without giving them a chance to even consider giving it away or worse, throwing it away. tags like bebe, bcbg, abercrombie, and urban outfitters started appearing in my closet.
they are still there.
and then i started college at a prestigious big ten university in michigan. i began acquiring “professional” clothes. button down shirts and pants with creases down the front and back. if i wanted to load up my resume with professional experience, i knew well enough what i had to do. so i bought the heels with the pointy toes that make your feet look abnormally long and mastered strutting into every interview like i knew what i was doing. just ask my first boss jon. i knew absolutely nothing about video production, but i got the job as production assistant freshman year. all because of those pointy toed fancy shoes.
those heels are in the giveaway pile.
and then i started my own business helping small businesses and nonprofits with their online marketing needs. i work from home mostly, or the laid back portland office of one of my clients. i never wear button down shirts or pants with creases. i never wear heels or really anything other than my chucks, rainbows, and moccasins.
maybe one day i will. and if that day comes, i know how to play dress up. but until then…
a couple months ago, my mom purchased multiple copies of a book she had read. this is a normal thing for her. i never make it home without adding some form of self-improvement, business, or spirituality book to my suitcase. usually, my siblings and i roll our eyes. yes mom, another book that touched you in some way. yes mom, we promise to read it. no mom, we never read it.
this time i actual did read it. and this time it actually touched me too.
the book takes a step back from our lives full of abundance and asks the question, what is actually enough? enough time. enough money. enough clothing. enough friends. enough love. what is our own personal definition of enough?
i returned home to portland on july 1 after being on the road for seven months. i returned home to my old house. it is not my house anymore, but it is for the next two months. luckily, my old roomie is in india all summer so i subletted his room. it is in the basement next to all my stuff. a whole corner filled with boxes and bags full of my stuff. stuff that has sat there for seven months without being touched.
what is enough?
i decided to take my moment of location stability to evaluate this question and simplify the crazy amount of stuff sitting before me in the basement. daunting me with its presence.
there is always an easy place to start with me when it comes to abundance…the closet. when i originally packed up my chevy cavalier and drove across the country, from michigan to oregon, most of the car was filled with my clothing.
so that is where this journey is going to begin. right in the middle of the biggest pile of clothes i have ever seen in my life.
i know. it is embarrassing. it is crazy how things accumulate without you realizing it. most of these clothes have been in my closet for years! some even since high school! yikes.
but, unfortunately or fortunately, i am a sentimentalist. give me the smallest material thing, and i will attach the biggest meaning to it possible. clothing falls directly into this category. ohhh, not that t-shirt from college. ohhh, don’t get rid of that beautiful blue dress i wore once on valentine’s day five years ago. you know exactly what i am talking about, and if you don’t, please teach me your ways.
in order to get some accountability and put some startling numbers on paper. i decided to count everything. step one…sort.
tonight i took the first steps towards emptying some of this mess of fabric and memories, and began the count. i only conquered tops and underwear before i was completely drained. please be loving with your harsh judgments…
sweaters: 37
cardigans: 7
long sleeve: 23
dressy long sleeve: 27
short sleeve: 21
nice t-shirts: 19
t-shirts: 58
tanktops: 26
workout tops: 19
hoodies: 18
underwear: 82
that is 255 tops. 255 TOPS! holy shit. how do i have 255 tops? this number is actually low too because i am sure there are currently 10 more in my laundry basket. and 82 PAIRS OF UNDERWEAR! what! although, it is amazing to think that i could go almost three months without doing laundry and still wear clean underwear everyday. i blame this number on the fact that i get a “free panty” gift card in the mail from victoria’s secret every month. yes, i am already passing blame elsewhere. deal with it.
i put on this week’s episode of so you think you can dance and attempted to lose my emotional attachment. get real. what tops have you actually worn in the past year. what tops have you never worn? (oh yes, there were a couple with tags.)
i thought i was totally ready to be ruthless with my wardrobe. and yet, in my first attempt i only added the following to the giveaway pile:
sweaters: 11
cardigans: 1
long sleeve: 9
dressy long sleeve: 10
short sleeve: 7
nice t-shirts: 7
t-shirts: 30
tanktops: 7
workout tops: 4
hoodies: 7
underwear: 12
93 tops. 255-93=162. I STILL HAVE 162 TOPS! what the heck? i am going to need some assistance in this task i think. please share your advice and encouragement and harassment. i will benefit from it all. despite only getting rid of about 1/3 of my tops, i did feel like i made some big breakthroughs tonight, including parting ways with this never-been-worn t-shirt:
i am sure jewel will understand what i’m trying to do here.
when you attend something called the world domination summit (wds), you have a certain amount of expectation that comes along with purchasing your ticket. it’s a pretty lofty claim. domination of the entire world? and yet, when you are sitting in a theater with 3,000 individuals who share in this goal, it seems…possible.
it was december 2010, and i was grabbing tea with cathy brown like we always do. catching up on our wild daydreaming and argentine adventures. she mentioned a book i should read. the art of non-conformity by chris guillebeau. i read it quickly. i was inspired. highlighted it to pieces as i do. immediately understood why she told me to read it. i began promoting the book to others completely forgetting the name of the author. i tend to do that. titles stick. authors don’t always.
it was probably may 2012 (completely arbitrary date), and i stumbled upon the facebook page for the book, and of course, clicked that “like” button with ease. the positive, pro-adventure, crafting-your-own-life posts starting popping up in my newsfeed. a daily head nod of agreement and the occasional sharing took place.
it was january 2013, and i was sitting in brian’s abuelos house in puerto rico. instead of enjoying the hammocks with two of the biggest dreamers i know, i was catching up on the computer. trying to keep the balance up between work and play. i saw a post on the art of non-conformity facebook page about something called the world domination summit happening in portland in july. it was in its third year, and chris guillebeau was the man behind it all. i googled his name because clearly i had no clue who he was. and lo and behold, he was the man who wrote the book.
long story short. i debated on spending the $500 on a ticket, consulted with a couple friends who had attended in the past, and in the end, in a spur the moment decision before tickets sold out, i did it.
it was july 2013, and i walked into a theater filled with 3,000 people ready to have their world rocked. 3,000 people all sitting down next to strangers and after brief introductions, immediately diving into their dreams. their dreams!
i am pretty self-aware and know my passions. i know where i am and what fuels that. but a big picture end of the road dream? a concrete item that i could tell these strangers when they looked me straight in the eyes and said, so what is your dream? sure, i could give them the vague answer involving some combination of underprivileged youth, art, movement, outdoor education, and storytelling, but it didn’t seem like enough.
(enough. that word keeps popping up in my life. what is enough? more soon.)
so the conversation with one fellow attendee, a frenchman who lives in seattle and does marketing for amazon.com, went something like this:
him: so what do you do here in portland?
me: i have me own media business (hand him new business card). i work with small businesses and non-profits on graphic design, online marketing, social media, websites, etc.
him: awesome. so you’re location independent.
me: (take a silent minute to figure out what that means) yes. i can work from anywhere.
him: so why are you here if you’ve already figured out how to live the dream?
me: that’s my for now dream, not my forever dream.
him: ah. so what breakout session did you go to this afternoon?
me: the one on overcoming fear.
him: how was it?
me: meh. i didn’t get too much out of it.
him: you don’t seem too fearful. why did you choose that one?
me: i don’t know. i feel fearful, but once i was in that room with 250 other people feeling fearful, i realized that i already practice a lot of the ways the speakers were teaching to overcome fear. i think i was actually able to share a lot of helpful thoughts with others in my small group.
him: hm. so what is your forever dream?
end scene.
it’s a big question to answer in a rush, but i wanted to do it. so i did. i said it out loud. heck i even said it on camera today for a website called pilot fire.
i want to start an alternative school for underprivileged youth focused on hands-on learning with emphasis in the arts, outdoor education, and foreign languages/cultures.
start is a relative word. thinking about it now, i would like to advocate for these kind of learning environments. if that leads to my own school, okay then. i just want to help bring our education system out of the factory mentality and into creative exploration.
it feels good to roll that around in my brain. to say an end goal and feel excited by that idea. and yet, it’s not news to me. actually, i am describing the kind of school i attended as a child. a school that shaped who i am. a school that sadly had to close its doors in 2011 after 98 years of “education the whole child.” and actually, my eighth grade teacher, mr. mikulak, predicted this goal too…twelve years ago.
he has known me since i was born. (my grandma and mom both worked at the school.) and as tradition had it, the day before graduation, all the eighth graders sat on stage at a school assembly while mr. mikulak read the ten-year predictions he had handcrafted for each of us.
sara schneider. well, she will be right back where she started, running the early education department here at chicago junior school.
our dreams run deep.
our ability to recognize them depends on the time we take to cultivate our listening. listening to ourselves and others. taking time to ask the simple questions that always have such complex answers.
the opening speaker at wds on saturday was a woman named nancy duarte. she is a communication junkie, and her analysis of speech and storytelling was fascinating. she developed a shape and theory that all the amazing speakers of the world seem to follow. martin luther king, jr. steve jobs. jesus. evita perón. it looks like this:
nancy broke down each of these four leaders’ speeches line by line and matched the sections up with the highs and lows of her shape. it was poetry. concrete poetry, where the lines form a shape. what is. what could be.
what is?
what could be?
the closing speaker at wds on saturday was a man named chase jarvis. he is a photographer, and instead of showing us his images like usual, he spoke on creativity. the importance of creativity in molding future geniuses. the ones who will solve world problems. come up with the solutions no one has thought about yet. he compared our need for cultivating creativity to the already-advocated need for literacy.
chris looked at our flawed education system, and it’s removal of things that teach our youth to be problem solvers. to tap into that creativity we have as children that is beaten out of us as we march through the societal schooling norms.
i wanted to run up on stage and tell him my dream. i didn’t. although i am sure it would have been applauded with this audience. “the power of dreams compel you” might have erupted from the crowd. a crowd filled with people on their own journeys to find their dreams or maybe re-find their dreams like me.
throughout the whole day, a few friends and family members kept popping into my brain that i wanted to be in that room with me. as i walked out of that theater, i had to remind those people just how amazing they are.
to those people:
thank you for the creativity you bring to this world. i am inspired to know you and just wanted to tell you that.
today, one of the speakers (darren rowse) had a special guest singer come up and share a song. the lyrics might resonant. spark a vibration in you. cause a dream.
p.s. there were way more cool speakers and such at wds on saturday. this is just a rambling sample.
the past few weeks have been filled with people. people that have been a part of my life from a very young age. people you don’t realize you miss as much as you do until you see them. people that even though life has sent you in very different directions, it only takes a few minutes to fall right back into your groove.
i was sitting in a ten-year-old’s bedroom in morganstown, west virginia. her walls are teal, and her shelves are lined with books and board games and photos and accents that show her personality. i remember when she didn’t have a personality. when she was a baby, and i would make her my subject for my high school photography class. and now, she is ten.
i have known her mother since second grade. spent all of second, third, and most of fourth grade with her standing alongside as i played my part of queen bee. in the middle of fourth grade, she moved away.
that is when it began.
friendship.
cherishing people.
no matter how far away they were.
in fifth grade, i boarded my very first airplane all by myself and flew to columbus, ohio over christmas break to see my friend. not because my mom suggested it, but because i knew it was a relationship worth making an effort to keep.
sixteen years later, and i still cannot help but board a plane and see my friend.
she returned to my school in sixth grade, and we finished out middle school with big boobs and even bigger attitudes. after graduating eighth grade, life took us in different directions, but i could never let the roads drift too far apart. airfare is a small price to pay to feel laughter that you know is real. to have shared memories that have shaped you both. to be reminded that distance cannot erase a bond.
it is known amongst my friends that i try my best to stay in touch. it might only be once a year that i get a chance to fly across the country to see them, but they know that i will always make the effort. but does a visit once a year, a birthday and christmas card, and a few phone calls here and there really equal a meaningful friendship?
in college, i had a friend who called me out on this. he was upset with me because i referred to him as one of my good friends yet didn’t really see or talk to him more than a couple times a month even though we lived on the same college campus, minutes apart from each other.
it was my senior year of college when we had this conversation. this startling realization that although most people praised me for flying to visit them in idaho falls or los angeles or indianapolis or austin or jackson hole or new york city, here was someone in my local community telling me that i was not investing enough. i was spread too thin. my past relationships from childhood and high school were impeding my ability to create those types of bonds with my college friends.
that thought has stayed with me for the past four years, but once again it is starting to take on a deeper meaning.
i have been on the go for the past seven months. traveling, yes. but more than traveling, seeing the people that are meaningful to me. the only travel i have done that was for travel sake was my month in india. the rest of the time has been spent cultivating and celebrating my friends and family.
time and distance tend to separate us, change us. the people that were close to us in high school, might not be the people that we want to hold close to us now. the people that were close to us in college, might not stay in contact as they get married and have children. i am learning to morph into the shifting roles of my relationships. i am also learning which ones continue to change who i am. those are the ones worth keeping. the mutual growth and love.
we hung out by the pool in her west virginia townhouse community and had girl talk. i had not seen her in three years and had maybe talked to her once a year on the phone in that time. we both delved into our successes and challenges of the past few years, and i had a moment where i thought, why didn’t i know all this? why didn’t you call me when this was happening?
a reminder.
she is always a reminder for me in my life. she has been since the day i met her in second grade. her lack was a reminder of my plenty. her cynicism was a reminder of my optimism. her responsibility was a reminder of my freedom. our consistency has always been a reminder of love. the kind of love between sisters. we fight. we make up. we laugh. we cry. we talk each other down from the ledge or push each other when it’s time to fly. but we are on different paths in life. i am grateful that i have always had someone in my life to remind me of the differences we face in life. she is also a reminder that some bonds don’t dissolve regardless of time and distance.
two close friends got married while i was home. one on a farm in the middle of nowhere michigan. one at a golf club in the suburbs of chicago. a perfect representation of the juxtaposition of the people that fill my life. both weddings were perfect for that person and their loved ones.
i was honored to be in the bridal party of one of them. a mutual friend of ours and i got to talking (as most unmarried girls do) about who we would put in our bridal party. it’s always an interesting exercise. who are those females who mean the most to you? the ones you would want to stand next to you for support as you make one of the biggest decisions of your life.
she stated that even though i was faraway and only saw her a few times a year, i would definitely be there by her side. i felt the same. i have known her since i was six, and like my time in west virginia, my time in st. charles reminded me of the close relationships that have made me who i am and continue to do so.
it’s been over two months since i returned from india. two months since i came “home.” two months since i have written a blog post. two months since i have slowed down.
in those two months, i have coasted along maintaining my vagabonding. i have not paid rent since november. i have paid taxes. i have bought plane tickets. i have paid contract workers. but i have not paid rent.
india to paris to los angeles. los angeles to bishop. bishop to los angeles. los angeles to boulder. boulder to portland. portland to boulder. boulder to portland. portland to las vegas. las vegas to portland. portland to boulder. boulder to detroit. detroit to ohio to new york. new york to grand rapids.
here now. back in grand rapids. catching up with clients. keeping connections strong. meeting new clients face to face. seeing old friends. enjoying the sunshine. dreaming big, but getting exhausted. but it still feels home-ish. i know where to go to find my favorite yoga. i know which coffee shops have the comfy chairs. i know where to go without opening google maps on my iphone. it is rooted in me.
grand rapids to chicago. chicago to boulder. boulder to chicago. chicago to madison. madison to chicago. chicago to west virginia. west virginia to chicago. chicago to montana. montana to boulder. and then?
there is no return ticket booked yet.
“a small boy was being pitied because he and his family were living in a hotel. he replied, ‘oh, but we do have a home. it’s just that we haven’t anywhere to put it at the moment.’” (finding a home, from the christian science monitor, march 15, 1978)
i tell myself that i do not need four walls surrounding me to make me feel home, and i don’t. i have lived in three cities since i left chicago in high school. each one felt good. because the city didn’t matter. it was always the people who made me feel home. yet, recently i have realized that four walls don’t make me feel home, but they do give me a routine. a routine i miss sometimes.
a space to call my own. hang my artwork on the walls and play brian’s aretha franklin album over and over on the record player loudly in the mornings. finding the silverware drawer that is instinctual for me.
last week, i went on a road trip with children’s book author sue stauffacher. read the blog.see the videos. detroit to new york. four schools and a library. probably over a hundred youth. we were sharing the tale of wireman, a literacy comic book that currently has two volumes. an amazing tool. an amazing story. an urban setting. an ethnic cast of characters. a plot to which every single child we talked to could relate. their faces lit up when they could read something that was about problems they faced, problems they had to solve.
our youth are so smart. they amaze me with their intuition. their insight. their passion. their need to be successful.
you could see several of them dance around the depth that wireman was causing them to feel. but there were a brave few who took the leap. let wireman’s plot penetrate their reality. giving them a medium to speak anonymously about the bully at lunch or the family situations at home.
home.
wireman creates a home for his crew. they live on the roof. they help each other. it seems so safe. they want safety. they find their wish fulfilled. a home. a safe home.
what is my wireman? who is my wireman?
there are only two volumes of wireman so far. eight issues. they bring you to a second grade reading level. did you know that there are 300 basic words that comprise 65% of written english? wireman includes them all. the story is ready to continue. volume three. four. five. a set of comic books that brings its reader up to a fifth grade reading level. we need this tool. wireman needs to find a home.
did you know the enhanced license only works on land and sea? you can cross into canada and back, or mexico and back, but not by airplane. we had to learn this the hard way.
sometimes you learn things the hard way. tears make it seem less hard. they always do. cry and people instantly change their tone. compassion all the sudden appears from behind their cemented scowl. why does it take teardrops to bring out a natural human emotion? we are taught to be tough as children. or maybe we aren’t. but i was. taught by my parents. taught by my siblings. taught by the boys next door. don’t let them see you cry. hide behind the treehouse until you can stop sobbing. holditalltogether. but i never learned to hide my emotions very well. if i am sad, you see it. if i am mad, you see it. if i am happy, you see it. but we camouflage it. chameleon-ize the feelings into something that won’t make us ashamed. yet, it is when we have lost all our inhibitions against hiding our emotions that strangers start to care. your gut gives when you see someone in distress and welling up with water at the corners of their eyes. or maybe it doesn’t for you. maybe it’s just me.
a scene from a movie. getting from to chicago to phoenix only to be told you cannot take the second leg of your flight to mexico with your family. christmas is two days away and flights are booked. but the airline employees bend over backwards to stop your tears. anything to stop the emotion. see a smile. save christmas. put you on the beach next to your sister so you can burn and peel and relax.
resilience.
our ability to bounce back.
traveling from one city to the next. filling my moleskine planner with hour after hour of meetings and dinners and coffee dates.
portland to chicago. get picked up at midway by dad. sleep in late and move to the couch to soak in his flat screen television with recorded episodes of homeland and dexter. you need those days to recover. to forget to eat and brush your teeth because moving from the couch seems so hard. rent a car from enterprise’s strapping young frat boys who are on the corporate fast track. a brand new nissan versa. a mere ninety miles on the odometer. wow. this is the newest car i will probably ever drive. i returned it with over 800. up to michigan. pulling into grand rapids and immediately checking clients off the list. squeeze in some yoga with my fairy godmother, a visit to have company, and pizza at a new-for-me brewery in town. sleep. wake up. go down the list of appointments. no more than travel time penciled in between. end up back in chicago at a holiday party full of old high school friends.
wow. 48 hours. it is amazing what can happen in 48 hours.
but how about 72? add in a trip to wisconsin to see the grandparents, kick my cousin’s butt in some xbox dance game, and alter the universe with my best friend. head back to chicago to catch the last two songs of anna ash at the tonic room with coop. sleep. more meetings. a quickbooks lesson. rush to return the rental car by 6pm to the suburbs.
are you tired yet?
now add in another lunch and some christmas shopping. and then let the holiday chaos begin. my 26th birthday in chicago with my favorite group of assholes. yeah, i said it. followed by christmas with my dad and nancy. now on a plane to mexico with my mom and sibling(s). amy had to fly home to get her passport.
did you know the enhanced license only works on land and sea? you can cross into canada and back, or mexico and back, but not by airplane. we had to learn this the hard way.
define liminal : finding the space between 
