Capturing Country Clues … 5

GeorgetownThe next day, after more lake fun, we drove back home for me to sleep in my bed one last time, before I departed the next day to meet up with Amil and continue our travels from Chicago. The usual comforts of home were overwhelming as I realized I had no time to organize, dig through things, find lost items, and clean up messes made from our quick visit last Christmas. I reassured myself that I would be home again in 4 months for Christmas, but this time would stay for long enough to truly go through my belongings and weed out what isn’t necessary for my future.

My short time in Texas was a lot different than my experience in New Mexico. Being back home around family made me realize what a mark New Mexico had left on me. There in the desert uplands I was finally doing exactly what I wanted to be doing:living in a community of amazing people, helping cook and clean as necessary; coming up with my own activities to allow kids to interact with nature, or facilitating exploration through various ecosystems; and mostly, watching the world change in one place from spring into summer, and summer into monsoon season. This being still, being slow, being creative and communal, struck every cord within me. But I didn’t realize how much it meant until I left it for what used to be home- the comforts of my upbringing. 
The short trails weaving through the property in Marble Falls were no longer enough compared to the thousands of acres of forest that surround me now. The comforts of flush toilets and ‘convenience’ of electric lighting no longer seem to be a necessity.

While I don’t think I will grow out of enjoying some comfort food, and drinkin’ a beer in the hammock anytime soon, I have grown to realize that those experiences are outliers of my own ideals. The lake, my parent’s house, my grandparent’s house, are just a place of escape for me to go to just long enough to realize that where I function best is in my own space.
But where is that? 

Cross Culture Clues…4

The Lake 

The conclusion of my volunteer week meant a much needed, long anticipated weekend at “the lake”. 
Visiting the lake means Food, Family, and Fun. There is always an ample amount of food, especially things I don’t usually eat. Despite the cycle of diets that one member of the family or another is on, there is always a bottomless bowl of Peanut M&M’s on the counter. There is also home-cooked food, which at this point I hadn’t had in months. But eating the treats that others create means not being too choosey in the ingredients. I had some cheese-covered-squash that grandma prepared, and some corn-syrup-infused potato salad—store bought, but a Lake staple nonetheless. For this weekend, I didn’t worry about the ingredients as much as I normally would, for any fare my family would feed me would be leaps better than the slop at camp, and I felt I deserved some comfort food. Oh! And, my brother made me a vegan chocolate coconut cake. Yum!

In addition to the ample food, we play games. Once everyone has eaten, checked their e-mail or looked up whatever the subject of the last conversation was, played guitar, and/or swam in the bath-temperature-water lake, a card or board game ensues. Since everyone knew I was only around for the day, they graciously assisted me checking off my Lake-life Bucket list:

-Scrabble
-3-13 (card game)
-Swim/Stand-up paddle board
-Drink a beer (shiner’s Prickly Pear ale, no less!)
-Canoe (replaced with paddle-boating with my bro)
-Eat!
-Lay in the hammock
 When all that was over, it was back to my grandparent’s house to wind down to bed. Something about sleeping in that house: the firm futon, the flowery sheets, the low night lights, or just the fact that there are so many people I love sleeping so close to me, always equals an un-paralleled sweet sleep. Also, waking up to the sounds of people chatting, the smell of toast, and the gentle sun through the curtains is like something out of fiction. :)

Cross Country Culture…3

Marble Falls“Culture shock” is all I can say about my week of work in Marble Falls. If it weren’t for the few familiar friends, the landscape I so love, and the hot humid August weather I had (thought I) much missed, I don’t think I would have made it through the week. 
After a few handshakes and smiles exchanged with brand new faces of all ages and shapes, I found myself sitting in the living room of the Director/Owner’s house as he explained what the week was to entail. The gist of the meeting was that no one knew what was to entail…this was going to be a brand new experiment allowing underprivileged kids to come ‘be at camp’ for a week, and strengthen from the character building that happens upon trying new things. This group would then be tracked and tested periodically and contrasted with their peers to see if this made a significant impact.

As my mind tried to process this information, I glanced around them room, trying to recognize the cultural clues that would be my home for the next week. Bare feet and flip flops replaced the “closed-toe-shoe” rule I had upheld all summer. Tank tops and running shorts of violently loud  colors seemed to be the dress code. In place of the dirty, hippie friends I had so shortly left behind in New Mexico were dozens of beautiful, manicured people- with unrealistic tans. 

I spent the entire week being lost, unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and not ready for the silly dancing, continuous singing, and blatantly “fun” but altogether meaningless activities that were required at camp. I tried hard to be a bridge between the ‘summer camp staples’ that this camp required and the slow, intentional and character-focused work that I had been doing all summer, but along with the heat, this took all the energy I had.

It had only been a year or two since I was in Texas in August. Walking through snow in New York, or digging through it in California, I had often reminisced the humid summers. But tossing and turning in a puddle on my bunk in my open air cabin, hoping for the slightest breeze (cause that’s all that comes) to blow in off the lake beside me, was a sweaty reminder of why I worked at an indoor day-camp in the summers growing up. Even at night, watching the waxing moon rise and set over its reflection in the still lake, I sweat. I realized that Amil may be right, I have adapted to the brisk wintery evenings that come with living in mountains.

Despite my personal culture shock, trying so hard to be present and enjoy the experience, but wanting so bad to leave, to be away from Miley Cirus songs, i-pods and processed food that you had 10 minutes to scarf down, the week was a success. Although a few of the girls, coming from less wealthy backgrounds than the rest of the campers, felt as out of place as I did, many of them were tearful upon their departure, wishing they could have the same experience next year, and hoping to keep in touch with all their friends.

Capturing Cultural Clues Cross Country Part 2

Houston – When I stepped off the plane in my home state, my first time in Texas in over 8 months, I was greeted by a stifling warm hug.The Texas humidity I had bragged about, longed for, and written about, was sticking to my skin in a warm welcome. I had to quickly change planes for one more flight into the air and through the sky, holding my breath that I don’t crash before I return home, where my heart can breathe and sigh and jump in the same state it did for the first 20 years of my life.

Georgetown

It was wonderful to be back ‘home’. Home in this case is my parents’ house which they purchased when I was going into my Senior year in college. Although I never lived here for more than a few months at a time (that’s another story…) it has the personal touches that my parents have chosen to express themselves, and a little room full of all the junk I grew up with. As soon as I dropped my bags I wandered from room to room noticing a new framed picture in Dad’s study, new and newly arranged furniture in mom’s art room. Then I jumped into some things I had been waiting to be home to do- digging out some forgotten clothes and items from my room, using mom’s extensive beading collection to make some earrings with hummingbird feathers that I collected this summer, saving my computer onto my backup hard drive, etc. I couldn’t stay up too late because I had to leave early in the morning to drive to Marble Falls, home of a past Outdoor School  I had worked at, to volunteer for a week.  
I woke up an hour early to go for a morning run. Although we had moved from the neighborhood I had grown up in, I missed running through neighborhoods, smelling laundry detergent and grills going as I passed each different house. This morning’s run would prove much different, however. First of all, I had heard so often that when you’re used to running at elevation (I’ve been living at 7500 feet for about a year), then running at sea level is a breeze. This is a flat lie. While I did have some success with this later in my journey, I would like to state that even as an asthmatic, it is much easier to run up and down low hills in the mountains than to run through thick humidity. 
The air was especially thick because we had just received a much needed rain. Although the grass usually cracks under your feet and the trees look like they could topple over at this time in Austin, everything was green. Sunlight danced through the trees, held in mid-air by the humidity. As I jogged along thinking about how jungle-like everything seemed, I was startled by a few deer frolicking across the street and up a ways from where I was running. I slowed down a bit, as one ran in front of me, leaping over a fence into the bushes, but the other stayed, staring at me with a look of, “what are you running from?” He kept his glance and as I ran by, he started to follow me! (Un)Fortunately he didn’t go far, and I continued trudging through my jog, impressed by the massive amounts of mourning doves acquiring on the power lines, and hopping from street to street as I passed. Although I grew up in central Texas, I had been away just long enough to think the measely Prickly Pear and yucca of the desert uplands were normal. I had forgotten what truth there is to the old saying, “everything’s bigger in Texas.”

Capturing Cultural Clues Cross Country (and back!)

33 days after departing New Mexico, we end our journey, but not where we started, and not as the same people that departed. In thirty three days Amil and I slept in 19 and 17 different places, respectively. We saw 34 family and friends as well as 6 dogs and 6 cats. We visited 6 national parks and forests, ate 5 different kinds of edible wild mushrooms and went to 4 farmers markets. What really made this journey spectacular, however, is not the quantity of our adventures, but how each stop on our journey crafted our personalities. We learned from each group of hosts about who we are, who we aren’t, what we need and what we don’t. In this essential time of transition between the transient life and the rooted life, the lessons we learned on the way will likely prove invaluable. 

What follows is a summary in hindsight of cross country travels- from Thoreau, New Mexico to New York City and back to Southern California.

“I want you to think about something while I’m gone this next week,” I started, as we zoomed down the highway toward the airport, under the usual variant New Mexican sky. I explained the possibility that our boss had presented to me in my end of summer evaluation. She had expressed interest in having us as a couple to work as collaborators of the Environmental Education center and caretakers of an Open Space in Albuquerque. She had mentioned it at the beginning of the summer when everything seemed so solid- fall work at an outdoor science school, back home for Christmas, move out, get ready for the wedding, get married, honeymoon, come back for another summer then off to graduate school… But now, after a summer of valleys and vistas, learning, teaching, growing and falling more in love with simple routines and desert life, our solid plans didn’t seem as rigid. After all the flexibility of the summer, this seemed like an obvious opportunity.

At the sunport, we hugged and kissed our “see-ya-laters.” Saying adieu for a week seemed like nothing after several multiple-month sessions without seeing each other. Then we were off- me to Texas to volunteer at a week-long summer camp, and Amil to continue with our originally planned road trip up to Colorado to catch a train to Chicago.

Across America…(and back.)

(Oh blog, why have I been neglecting you?! My desire to write and share is so strong, and yet I sit down to the computer to…scan Yahoo news. yikes.)You and I will become better aquatinted, cause I have some stories to tell and some observations to share. 

There are two reasons for my absence from the blog lately. My last post in February occurred while employed at an Outdoor Science School in Southern California. I somehow found myself too distracted with getting to know people, yahoo news, working, and making the most of the warming months in Southern Cali to post frequently. 

I left Cali in May for a week long trip through Arizona to New Mexico where I have spent my summer as Resident Naturalist. I think I have really found my niche in the world, and I hope to continue pursuing naturalist positions. 

In the month between jobs, Amil and I are traveling from New Mexico, to Colorado via car, to Chicago via train, and then to NYC via train, to stay with friends and family via more cars and trains and then take a train back to Colorado to drive to California. 

As if that weren’t complicated enough, I got an offer to work at a week long summer camp opportunity for KIPP students in Marble Falls, Texas, that allowed me to fly home and see my family in the Austin area before flying to Chicago to meet up with Amil and jump on a train to NYC. 

The mental focus and emotions that have occurred from these transitions, as well as my observations of each new place, is what I hope to highlight in these next few blogs. Stay tuned :)

Yellow #5

1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Every food should look the same so come on and dye
every piece of food the same color
Mac and Cheese looks so great but I really don’t want a
headache like I had last week
memory loss, stupidity and fatigue
it’s in M&M’s, mustard, Mountain Dew, Velveta
It may change the color but it doesn’t make it sweeta

So what can I do, I really beg you FDA
let food be it’s own color, it is nature’s way
In ‘08 the EU began to publicly damn it
now it’s time for you to Ban it!

A little in the marmalade in my life
a little in the popcorn by my side
a little in the cheese is all I need
a little in the freeze pops is what I see
a little in the corn chips in the sun
a little in the pasta all night long
a little bit of chewing gum and I’m set
a little of your dye makes me upset!

Yellow #5!

What’s wrong with brown, and greyish colored foods
If it’s not appealing as it is
then maybe it shouldn’t be sold to you
we don’t need foods to sparkle and shine
before dyed foods we got by just fine
and as if that wasn’t good enough for you
you put it in my soap, make-up and fake tattoos

A little bit of allergies in my life
a little ingestion in my side
a little bit of wheezing’s all I get
a little bit of migraine’s you can bet
A little of depression is no fun
a little insomnia all night long
a little bit of hives all over my skin
This yellow #5 is quite a sin

I’ll do, all I can
to keep #5 out of the plan
you can run and you can hide
but do away with Yellow #5!