Two Days till Departure

The Journey Commences

Greetings and salutations Reader,

Thus begins the first installation of my "travel-blog."
Forgive the cliched term.

Early Sunday morning, I fly to Dublin, Ireland with two companions and begin our trek across the green island, with nothing but a GPS system, a little car, and my OCD travel itinerary.

I hope I can find my passport.

Join us! (aka: live vicariously through creeping on my journal),
Kellie

Note the blog makeover. New Chapter. Welcome to the next Phase: where I move out of isolation and travel across the world.

Strange things are happening to me

I don't do well with change.
Ask anyone who
knows me.

Thank you to the gracious hearts who offered their thoughts re: Zak's adventure. He's doing great and decompressing for the weekend up here with him did wonders for my Soul and seemed to be a good thing for him, too.

My nerves today are wound a little tight--the end of one Life and the beginning of another. I move out of Hume on Friday, go to my parents' (where is home anymore?) for a day, then take a plane to Ireland early Sunday morning.

Terrified, yes.

Tonight I am going to sit in the jacuzzi with my sister and eat ice cream and play Rummikub and dream away stressors.


Hugs to all

Sisters

I leave for Ireland in five days!!!


And I don't have to spend this last week alone because my lovely sister is staying with me at the house. Right now we're babysitting the high schoolers :)

Alyssa asked how old they are.

I answered, "Two."


A room full of students stuck in the terrible-twos phase. With laptops and twiggy facial hair.

Zak fell on the fist of a Pimp.

So

Now that I have Zak nestled comfortably in one of the upstairs bedrooms of my house, and I have my family lounging in my living room, I can semi-joke about this week's events.

It's still not funny, but since Zak's cracking jokes, I guess I'll eventually find it amusing. In ten to twenty years.

On Wednesday afternoon I got a text from Zak: "I had quite the adventure this morning. Call me."

Thinking he'd discovered some new cranny of SF, I called, smiled the hello, and asked after his mysterious message.

Dialogue as follows:

Zak:
"So I'm walking to work this morning and I see this guy yelling at this woman. It sounded like he was her pimp (edited explicatives) ... Well, I turned the corner and thought, 'Zak. You can't just walk past that.'"

[Pause: Kellie's internal monologue: But you DID, right????]

Alas

Zak:
'So I went back and said, 'Excuse me ...'"

[cut out a lot of dialogue between Zak and pimp]

"He stepped toward me. I stepped back. I woke up [two?] hours later: hospital lights, strapped to a table, neck brace, blood ... the whole movie-scene."


....
So apparently he had a seizure after the pimp knocked him for a loop and woke up in the middle of those movies where they're rushing you down the hospital corridor and someone's yelling, "HOW MANY FINGERS?!?!?" and shining a light in your eyes to make sure your pupils are dilating.

(i may be over-dramatizing. but it's not likely)


----

Needless to say, I started bawling on the phone and booked it to SF two days later, a wreck and a mess until I looked at his swollen lip and thought, "It could be so much worse."


I've never felt so grateful to see another human being in my life.
And I felt his life fiercer than ever: valued the light in his eyes and the heart in his chest and the laughter that made his swollen lip flush and made my soul sing.

But don't tell him I said so. I'm supposed to be the strong warrior who has nerves of steel and can withstand anything.


---

love's a funny thing.

Oh Lady Liberty

In class today, I deported two of my students and watched as the other four took the Oath of Loyalty, then entered the United States via Mini-Ellis Island.

Due to the intense creativity and brilliant-ness of my Daddy, Lady Liberty herself made an appearance. Due to the gracious generosity of three parents, I had a hard-core, in-character staff of Ellis Island officials who heckled, suspected, examined, and refused my frightened "immigrants." A special, overjoyed thanks to Suzanne West, Kris Whitling, and Debbie Plouffe who stepped in (some of you at six am this morning!) to make this thing happen.

And an additional special thanks do my new assistants, Gerrit and McKenna, for helping with te tear-down.

Oh and I made coffee in the room. And pancakes yesterday.

See, while my 8th graders were becoming immigrants and re-creating Ellis Island, I decided to declare my upper graders an independent nation. They named themselves--Humistan--, made up laws, and declared war on the 11th and 12th grades. And wrapped half the rest of the school into it. Now we have 8th grade mercenaries and elementary students (who I'm sure are just in it for the food).

Food explanation: One of the "laws" they declared:
Section C: National Citizen Law
Item C.VI
Humistanians shall make and consume communal breakfast eeach morning, directly after SSR.


Good grief.
Talk about a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

My heart feels sad when I regard my immanent departure. A week from tomorrow I move out and close this chapter of my life.

----
I am also in conflict, because while I am absorbing every final moment up here, my anxieties and my heart and my deepest thoughts are in San Francisco with Zak--who, in a completely selfless and chivalrous act, broke himself on someone else's fist for a stranger.

But that's a long story for another journal.

----

Can't decide between Ragtime and Blues

My Life
is full of
chaos.

In the best way.
Today I went to Thousand Oaks to spend time with family, took some lovely pictures, and wandered around the mall hiccuping. Tomorrow I plan to get a pedicure, give my mom her Mother's Day present a week late, and drive back to Hume. Tuesday = no school so ... Either I will be building a model Statue of Liberty or I will take the opportunity to leave the God-forsaken town.

I only meant to use that phrase because everyone else does but now it strikes me as funny because that's a Christian camp.

I got sidetracked ...

San Francisco.
Zak?

I miss him.

My life is chaos because my heart is constantly in three or more places and I call all of them Home.

---
Lynne says we should hug more so I hugged a security guard at the mall and he chained me to a bench.

Not really.
But I would find that amusing.

Fail Blog Umpteen

These past few months I have failed to excel at driving.

Today I ran into a parked car.
Last week I got my first speeding ticket.
Last month I backed into a pole.
Two months ago I parked in a no-parking zone.


Today I also walked into a wall, complained to a saint, and dropped a brand-new lollipop in the sand. Oh, and mistook a giant ant for a spider and ran upstairs screaming.

*wide pretend-grin*

I'm going to listen to Tracey Chapman and stare at the ceiling and sip hot chocolate and pretend its something soothing like Sassafrass soda at an old train station while the bricks rattle against the wheels of a horse-drawn carriage,

At the mercy of the Clock

Countdowns:

1. 1 life-day till I see my family again.
2. 4 life-days till I see Zak again.
3. 6 life-days till my Assistantship application is due for Mills
4. 15 life-days till the last day of Hume Lake Charter School.
5. 6 official class days till the last day of School.
6. 17 life-days till I get on a plane to go to Ireland with two dear souls.
7. 32 life-days till my housing deposit for Mills is due.
8. 54 life-days till Zak flies to Africa.
9. 100 life-days till I move into Mills.
10. 104 life-days till my first day of Mills classes.


----

I don't want to leave the mountain. At all. I love it here. I like the basement and the extreme quiet of the woods. I know Silence, now, more intimately than I ever could have, had I not taken this retreat.

I don't want to leave the mountain but I do want community again. I failed at meeting people up here--I know faces in passing and they only know my name, "She's that teacher."

I'm trying to keep my heart quiet in the longing for a Companion.

----

Yesterday I drove to Fresno, bought milk and butter, and drove back. My students called me insane and I'm beginning to agree.

Con[grad]ulations, Class of Eternity

At some point this weekend, I'm sure God paused, looked around, and giggled at the things He'd done.

Graduation:
Black-robed and tired, I trudged my way into the sea of comrades, trying to shove my too-small hat on my mis-measured head while anxiously flopping the awkward tassel out of my nose. I watched as names filtered across the stage and as memories ghosted along in their wake. When I took the folder and made my way to the "Other Side," the thoughts of, "Well, I've already been here since December" slipped away and were replaced by an awkwardly tied-down flag where I posed, "Cheese"-d and became another in a long line of the

American Dream.

College bookmarks life: serves as a stopping point between the "growing up" and the "adult." I spent three and a half years dwindling away these bookmarked years, consuming the idle pages as I scribbled away in the margins of my Book. When I finally stepped out, the years previous were nearly illegible and the supposed "blank pages" reserved for the years to come had been bled through and smeared to the point that I needed to shelve that text and replace it with a fresh, clean slate.

Since January, the newly white pages have become familiar friends and my Life has smoothed the scars into gentle wrinkles that vaguely remember that Face that crossed the stage with Its smile in the air, or her laughter that hearkened back to late-night Study Hours, or that handshake from that Professor whose gentle eyebrows seemed to forget the missing essays.

In black funeral attire, I descended the stage and stood beside the rest of the graduating class of 2009 and felt a Stranger at Home.

The In-between:
A flower. A table on the beach. Two candles and years' worth of burdened memories, flickering soft as the flame that wove in the wind as I tasted the salt spray across my lips and my feet dug beneath beach rocks to earth.

And a flower. The petals hushing against one another in the "Remember when?"

Remember when you thought you'd Keep and Preserve and Leave the life you'd dreamed to forge another, unpredicted one?

The flower shifts, the stem rolls a little on the uneven tabletop and a hand takes mine
and pledges
Love
beyond the Flower,
in Spite of the Flower,
because of

the Flower on the table at the beach
like the prayer that wafts skyward on the shoulders of
candle-smoke.

----

This world changes faster than I can catch my breath and I
intentionally
extend the exhale.

God was feeling mean when he created spiders, and when he gave man the idea for Macs.

Trauma.

I was in the garage searching for a shovel and found two wild mice dead in mousetraps.

sick.

Why can I hear those beeping things that are supposed to only annoy spiders? I am not a spider. But I was standing next to one in the garage and it made me nauseous!


Hmmm. Those poor mice.

Well, this just goes all over the place

Dear Blog,

I'm sorry I yelled at you.

Love Kellie

P.S. Someone needs to make sure that Santa Barbara gets the memo that I am trying to graduate in her city this weekend and would prefer it if half the buildings are still standing.

----

I watched some of my students run around on a stage in tutus and flowers and missed Dance, where the most beautiful line you can draw extends from the tip of your fingers to your Heart and the higher you hold your head, the more radiant you Are. Not just look. Are. 

Mmmm, Hume, you've forgotten that I'm here but I see you--in your chapels and your trees and the families that cuddle close together like birds in a nest and stare, confused, at the sparrow alone on the branch in the next tree because instead of a nest she lives in a Cave and instead of companions she has ... mice.

Still, I've grown quite close with the trees and will soon experience the jolting assimilation back into cement culture. In fact, this summer promises many culture shocks: from the Mountain-top retreat to an overnight room in my parents' home, to an airplane, to an Ocean, to the Land of Spirit, then Vagabonding it across that Green Island, then back home to... work? To find a way to fund graduate school? To live again behind a desk where the Man signs my paycheck? (ick)

Then, I commence The Move to the Bay Area where the only familiar face is the Bridge and the only Home is at most two years long.

Mmm, I could use a Settling after all this nonsense. 

I'd be alright with change if at least one thing stayed the same but the moment I get comfortable, the world shifts and I'm left with my feet dangling off the Cliff and even if I don't Breathe, the breeze knocks me over.

Bah humbug. I am in Love with the Sky and with the Sea but neither notice me so I stick my toes in the Shore: she and I wait for ... 

----

One, two three ... I live alone in a basement and I understand the extremes of tranquility and anxiety. One is for Spirit, two is for Guide, three is for the Friends that sit in my chest and remind me in the latest of nights that the Dark contains light. 

I've had insomnia for weeks now and I can't decide if it's anticipation, stress, hope, discomfort ... but something keeps me up at night staring at the ceiling till two a.m., thinking Loneliness and counting wrinkles but, ultimately,

concluding in the whispered prayer.

thus: He--Still--the Constant.

Morale: Low. Attitude: Sucky

I was looking at my financial turnaround for this year, budgeting out Ireland, and to my surprise:

I made Zero dollars this semester.

I mean, I've always heard that teachers are broke. But subs? Subs are eternally impoverished. Even the long-term ones who do the same as a teacher and get half the check.

No wonder my fridge is empty.

(dot, dot, dot)

You think I'm joking. I eat on donations. Literally.

O0OOHHhhh yeah, and I can count the amount of people I still talk to from Westmont on one hand.

Community: nil
Money: nil
Food: nil
Hugs: nil


That's it, I'm going home.
Oh wait--I am. Tomorrow night. After I get a much-needed Zak from the Fresno train station.

fail blog #2

I mis-used the semicolon in the first line of fail blog one.

How humiliating--even if it was just a type-o.

Unfortunately I am too proud to change it. I will use this as an opportunity for a lesson: a semicolon connects two complete thoughts. A colon begins a list. Or creates a wonderful dramatic pause.

That was a fragment.

Illustration complete.

My own version of a Fail Blog.

Apparently I am not meant to reside within a room that contains a stove, an oven, or a spatula.

Apparently, to "season" chicken does not mean to; throw garlic powder and black pepper (a futile substitute for 'garlic pepper') into a hot pan, toss pre-microwaved chicken into the pan (due to my impatient attempt to 'thaw' the frozen meat), and proceed to pour oil over the whole concoction in hopes that some of the flavor sizzling against the pan will

"stick."

Apparently, flour does have a purpose in the baking process.

Note: this was supposed to look like a brownie and instead, as I later whined to an amused telephone-Zak, it came out looking like a "Bruised omelet." Tasted like a really sugary, spongy omelet.

I forgot 1. A cup of flour. 2. half a cup of brown sugar.
I put in: 1. 2tbsp of flour. 2. 1 cup of brown sugar.

AND, when the recipe called for "1 egg and 1 egg yolk," I cracked open the first egg, thought for a moment, deemed the recipe-writers persnickety, and cracked and poured the whole of the second egg into the concoction.

Apparently, when Zak's sister advised me to "sprinkle white sugar" on the vegetables for my dinner tonight, she didn't mean for me to pour three cups of sugar over the still-frozen vegetables, letting the sugar mix with the melting water to form a crystallized substance over the die-cut carrots and limp green peppers.

Apparently.

You'd think I'd know these things. At least I didn't follow my second instinct and try to follow up the white sugar with brown sugar because "I like the way brown sugar tastes."

Good Lord. Seriously, Good Lord, Kellie.

Needless to say, I ended up with syruped vegetables, garlic squish (failed chicken), and a carmellized omelet.

----

In other news, I made a splendid lemonade concoction out of the frozen concentrate and four cups of poisoned Hume water.

Cheers

This just in:

Google amuses me.

"Hooray, no spam here!" appears when I click the command "Delete all spam messages foreverrrrrr" (emphasis added).

So extreme. So giddy. So trendy. So annoying.


Google amuses me.


In other news, Santa Barbara burns again. Apparently.

Santa Barbara Confuses me.

Count my wrinkles real slow so I can hear you whisper the New Hello

So many wonderful things have happened, are happening, and will happen this week.

1. I am writing Me and I am liking what I see.
2. I had chocolate chip pancakes and spinach for lunch today.
3. I had chocolate chip pancakes and eggs for dinner tonight.
4. Bre is almost done with school.
5. At 10pm on Thursday I will be hugging Zak Landrum in the Fresno train station.
6. On Friday I will be having tea with my English friends and professors.
7. On Friday afternoon I will be driving home from Santa Barbara with a long black robe in tow.
8. On Friday night my dear, sweet cousin will graduate Masters College.
9. On Saturday morning I will re-graduate from Westmont. Pomp and Circumstance and a grand ceremony where I march down to the field behind a man in a kilt and pray A. For no wind and B. If there is wind, that he remembered the Essentials.
10. All the things that accompany a graduation.

I'm not excited to say goodbye to Westmont for good, even though I've been living off and on my own for a semester now. It feels like a lifetime. Where was I a year...

Ago, I was waving goodbye to the class of 2008, not knowing I'd be one of them in a short time.

mm. Farewell youth. I can't pretend, anymore.

In college I sported pale-blonde hair and black-rimmed eyes and I mostly staggered when I walked and kissed the sky when I talked.

I'm much more sedate. Sort of. But at least I can still fly.

See you soon, Westmont. See you last, see you first, and see you Forever..
My Beloved Friends.

Why, no, I'm not completely useless

For too long, now, I have stared helplessly at the fridge while intimidating ingredients loomed up at me from the white abyss.
No longer, cries she.

I have made Chicken Parmesan and Spinach and I can cook, dear friends.

And I have three more recipes to use for the rest of the week.

What's that you say? Domesticate?

Ah. Perhaps, yes, someday.

America is, Essentially, a Dream

Woke up this morning with sunlight streaming in my window and thought,

Today I am going to write Me.

So I have begun the intense task of writing my life into a small computer that fits in my lap, using a word processing program and my diaries from my (few) years of life.


Crazy, I must be insane.

But it's enlivening. I could not decide where to begin so I began everywhere--today, yesterday, five years ago, past generations. We'll see how it goes.

I'm coming to Santa Barbara this next weekend to don the black robe and march the funeral procession as we mourn the official death of College and are granted new life, a second birth, into the world.

A life I've already been living for a semester, now. Surreal. But my parents want the photographs of me in funeral attire.

With me this weekend, Zak makes the journey to the nostalgic beach town.
Ah, remember a year ago? I'll say, and he'll nod, smile, press the familiar memories of our Beginning.

By the way, he's going to Africa in July. Ask him about it.

And I'm packing my bags for the green Island, the Ireland, the home of my heritage and the root of my tomorrows.

Who are the Irish? Mythmakers, Poets,
Storytellers, All.