Islesboro Campout

Just got back from a campout.  A short two-nighter with the family and a group of folks that we see every year at the end of July.

I brought a book hoping that I would finish reading it before Sunday.  Maybe I'll finish it before Monday.

The first night brought rain, and the second night a meteor shower.  I spent the second half of the first night in the truck where the rain couldn't reach me, and on the second night I watched the milky way gently curve over the night sky while my sister and our Roman-obsessed friend stared up at the lights.  My sister wondered where the fire-flies have gone.  I wondered how the yearly scary story was progressing.

The story was well-narrated by one of my best friends.  He told about dark spirits who stole a lovers' friend away after he wished for and received her love.

The weekend felt quiet.  My spirits were tame.  When I compare this summer with the first summer I became friends with everyone, I seem to have become a softer presence, and yet I was involved in all the "happenings."

Last night ended with a discussion of scary movies, and I drifted off to sleep in a tent with my sister after attempting to forget the visions of knives and floating bodies that ended the conversation around the campfire.

Mom's Spider Plant

            Drinking in the last rays of afternoon sunlight, my mother’s spider plant looks out of the dining room’s bay window at the frozen garden.  Dozens of baby spider plants hang beneath the mother spider plant, and reach for the ground with their tiny roots.  Their little white roots twist around each other beneath their long leaves that splay out over their roots like children who refuse to comb their hair after waking up in the morning.  Each baby is connected to the mother spider plant by a green umbilical cord. 

            I remember when this mother spider plant was a baby itself that had only recently been disconnected from its mother.  I first saw this spider plant I was six years old and in my first grade classroom.  My teacher held a black garbage bag and told my class that we would be potting spider plants for our mothers.  It was early May, and Mother’s Day was only a week away.  My teacher wanted each student to honor his or her mother and the spring by selecting a plant and potting it.  She handed out small plastic pots and told us to fill the pot with dirt, dig a small hole, and place the plant, roots first, into the dirt. 

            I hardly remember my first grade year in Thomaston, but I do remember patting the dirt around my little spider plant.  My life had changed drastically that year, but the act of playing in the dirt was one I understood.  That year had included moving into a new house, starting a new school, making new friends, and meeting a new baby brother.  With all these changes, each day was different including trying to fit in to the social expectations of my new classroom.

            However, potting a plant was not a new activity.  It was a respite from the new experiences that came with living in town.  Living in Thomaston was very different from living in Blue Hill.  My home in Blue Hill was away from civilization, and was located in a swampy forest.  My sister and I loved spending our time outside telling stories and playing in the dirt and around the trees.  I remember making tree bark sandwiches and picking vegetables in our little garden.  I imagine these memories caused the moment I potted my mother’s plant to stand out in plethora of activities I completed in my first grade classroom.

            When class ended and I watered my little plant, I watched it grow in the classroom until it was time to take it home to my mother.  After delivering the plant to my mom, she thanked me for it, and we set it in the sun to watch it mature into an adult.  Quickly the plant grew, and I remember how surprised I was when the little plant I had brought home was producing babies of its own.

Maybe If I Write, I'll Feel Happier

I know I am happy, and I know it is a good thing that I am here.  But I just want to go home.  This feeling hits me most Sunday afternoons and evenings.  I know doing things helps me, but at this moment I want to curl up into a ball on my parent's bed and have them give me hugs and let me melt into that place that I once came from.  But that's impossible.

I had such a great day yesterday, and I got to talk with my parents today.  I wonder if there is something that I am not grateful for, or if I just need to snap myself out of the belief that I want to be home.

Maybe things will be better next year when I have another year of experience away from home behind my belt.  I can't wait for five weeks to go by so I can go home.  But will it be any better at home?  Or will I always crave for something more?  I wish I could know now, but I have a feeling that this knowledge comes with time.  At some point I'll understand.

It's a New Year

It has been nearly two months since my last entry.  So much has changed.  I can't believe I am back at school.  Six weeks is a nice long break, but since I was in Guatemala for four of the six weeks learning Spanish with other people from school, it really didn't feel like part of the break.  Except the weekends.  Especially the Saturday I got to travel in Antigua without the entire school group.  Then I could imagine what it must be like to go to Antigua for a vacation from the rough northern winters.  But Guatemala isn't a place to escape to--it is a unique culture to experience and to help.  It is a place where there are unique traditions and expectations.  I got a little fed up with the tourists and wondered why I was there a few times.  It is so hard to experience a culture and come away intact.  Of course, it is hard to experience your own culture and come away intact.  Because there is always the question, where are you coming away to go?

School has already started giving out many homework assignments to teach me how to learn and delve deeper into projects.  It is teaching me how to teach, how to write clearer, how to understand myself, how to understand Latin America, a unique perspective of the Middle East, and how the environment is always in a state of change, although the change may be the same as the growth of a fingernail.  The school wants me to become a strong and efficient communicator.  It wants me to understand Christian Science, and it wants me to be self-aware.  For, I suppose, if you are not aware then how are you able to learn and to help youself?

My good friend and roommate from last quarter has decided to transfer.  Sometimes I question myself when other people leave.  I remember feeling similarly when my good friend from the previous spring break decided she was not going to return in the fall.  Both girls have gone on to great schools and exciting new adventures, but I sometimes don't understand why I am still here and why they have left.  However, the same thing happened in high school.  I remember thinking that we all have different paths, but one path isn't better than the other.  I thought my friends' paths looked really awesome, but they weren't mine. 

Happy New Year!

An Old Journal Entry

Nature envelopes me and the winds whisper words with no consonants into my ears.
Without consonants the words are meaningless to my head, but my heart understands as I fall asleep.
The sleep is not peaceful.
It is full of images of deep greens and bright blues.
As I allow myself to lose control, a splash of orange flashes through my body.
I have lost control of my being, and the night takes the helm.
The night attempts to control my mind, but my heart never lets go of the self control I dream I own.

Time Change

I love it when the time falls back and I have more time to sleep.
This morning I woke up an hour early, and lay back in bed contemplating when I "should" get up.
My roommate woke up, looked at the clock, swore, and nearly got up.  Then she remembered that she hadn't switched her clock back.
Such is daylight savings.
Last year, when the time sprung forward, I was very careful because I was about to head on a spring break trip, and I didn't want to be late for the vans.
I woke up before the sun had risen, because someone was calling my extension.  The first words from the mysterious person's mouth was, "Happy daylight savings!"
I was late for the bus.
As quickly as I could I ran around the room and grabbed everything I needed.
My roommate had woken up when the phone rang, and she was confused because we had both been sure her phone (our alarm clock) would spring forward with the change.  Apparently it hadn't because she hadn't opened it.
But such is daylight savings.

My Emotional Self

I have had quite a week.  There have been ups and downs and highs and lows.  I have gone running, I have danced, and I have sung.  It has been quite a time.

I am beginning to wonder how I can take myself solely on an emotional journey, and not pull other people in to my questioning.  Is it a bad thing to include other people in my emotional travels?  I don't want to drive people away from me by my questions, and I don't want to frighten people when I gain intensity.  I don't want to become dependent on others either.  I don't want to constantly search.  Especially when I have no idea what I am searching for.  I want something more, but I have no idea what this "more" is, and I don't know what it will look like.

I wonder, wonder, wonder, where can I put all these emotions and thoughts?  Where can I express myself.

How can I just be?