What We Have

Now we have four walls, creamy white, yellow curtains and an overgrown front yard, spicy with nasturtiums. Home is a marble, rolling across our dark wooden floors, home is our ragtag free-cycle furniture, the yellow striped chair hanging threads, often sandy. We have put up posters, dangling beer-can cut outs, and painted skateboards, shadow boxes with candles and our tiny handful of DVDs; little things that feel familiar.

At sunset our bedroom glows green, slats of light across our matching black and white desks, pockmarked and covered in stacks of poems and long proofs. Our dog, the color of toasted marshmallows, sprawls across our striped bed, and blinks with lazy yellow eyes. Bits of fur may gather like tumbleweed in the corners, but we have animal print, books, big mugs, and a good coffee grinder.

We have a fraying home made tablecloth and silly cups with stories, your grandmother’s clay jar full of sugar, and outside our lettuce grows big and bitter. We have disorganized cilantro and kale, snap peas and bok choy. We have wriggling pink worms in a shady box, covered in newspaper. We have a blue shed.

We have a globe and a broken typewriter. We have secret boxes beneath the bed. We have a sewing machine and a pile of fabric and yarn, and a dresser with stupid knobs. We have Christmas lights around the doorway, and half a bottle of laundry detergent; we have our whole lives ahead of us.

Visits!

CASEY IS COMING TO SPAIN!

Last week we finally got his ticket! He'll actually be leaving California ON Christmas, because it'll save us money, so I won't get him on my birthday but the day after Christmas, and then he'll stay until January 13th. I'm so fucking exciting, there are no words. Basically, all my Christmas money is going towards this ticket, but having him here is the best present I could imagine.

In other exciting news, SatAmrit and Mailee came to visit this week, and it was glorious. I discovered that I was definitely not prepared to be a very effective tour guide, and I feel like I may have been a little bit of a failure, but I did manage to take them to see the Alhambra and to get paella and I took them out to Camborio and to La Sal (randomly) and they got to meet Karim and Leto and we got to Skype with Zella and it was almost like being back together with my favorite Santa Cruz ladies.

It was generally just kind of surreal and awesome having them here with me. Made home somehow seem further away, though, especially since they're going back to CA in December, which seems so close compared to my return date. If I hadn't extended, my trip would already be a third over. Weird. It's also strange to think about the fact that they, and many other friends, are graduating, so by the time I come back people are going to be scattering. It's easy to forget that college isn't real life and that all your friends will scatter and do different things with their lives. I'm really glad I'll have Casey in Santa Cruz with me, though. House hunting with a dog is going to suck, but once we find a place life will be lovely.

Aaaanyway, yesterday was Friday, so Casey got:

Super strong manly mints! Not for girly men. Why? Because he has a mint addiction, and these are funny.

Well, it's a cold sleepy Saturday and I'm on the verge of either going back to sleep or making some tea, but either way I will be thrifting my life away in a while because the thrift shop down the street is having an everything for ONE EURO sale. I need some man-sweaters in my life, yesiree I do.

In closing, I leave you with this fabulous drawing that SatAmrit made of Gypsy, who is apparently a boy kitty:

Goodbye to Sockshop, Goodbye to Laptop

This Sunday marked my final day of employment at the Santa Cruz Sockshop & Shoe Company, a bittersweet occasion. Since a substantial group of us are leaving this month, Sockshop employees gathered at the roller rink for a wobbly goodbye. I even managed to have a good time pulling myself around the railing, despite my vow not to participate in any activity requiring any kind of balance.

In less sweet and more bitter news, sometime after the roller rink party, my house was broken into and my laptop was stolen. Not incredibly shocking, since my house is in a pretty sketchy part of town, but its still strange that it was taken less than a week before I was planning on moving out. The timing is pretty frustrating because now that I'm no longer working at Sockshop I was hoping to work more hours as the Social Media Coordinator for Barber Insurance, which obviously requires quite a bit of computering.  Also quite creepy, considering one of my housemates was actually asleep in the house when it was broken into. Hopefully insurance things will work out soon enough, though, and I'll be able to replace it in time for my trip! Wish me luck!

Anxiety and the Giant Dipper

I recently spoke to someone who pointed out something very interesting about anxiety and excitement. She had me conjure up each sensation, and compare the visceral, physical feelings that they created. Interestingly enough, they were nearly identical. Each subtly sped up my heartbeat and my breath; each created a tightening in my belly.

As someone somewhat prone to anxiety and stress, noting these similarities has been useful in that it allows me to perform a transference of stress and worry into excitement. As my trip approaches, my mind is intermittently flooded with all the looming unknowns I’m scheduled to face, but with some conscious effort, I’ve been able to turn these fears into anticipation. The unknown is what keeps life interesting; leaving for Spain is a choice based on my desire to experience the unknown, to challenge myself and embrace upheaval, unpredictability and change.

As the days pass and my departure approaches, I’m reminded of a rollercoaster. (Specifically, the Giant Dipper at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, which I’ve been riding a lot lately.) 

The most terrifying part of a rollercoaster is the slow, painstaking ascent. The ride creaks up, foot by foot, and as you approach the top, and look out at all the people milling about with both feet safely planted on the ground, you begin to wonder if you’re insane, why you’d ever boarded the ride in the first place, and, of course, if you’re going to die. But once you take the plunge, the adrenaline rushes through your veins, and you’re swept along in a whirlwind of exhilaration that leaves you wind-tousled and energized. (And, if you remembered that the camera is on the second drop to the left, you’ll have posed for a ridiculous photograph.) 

Goofy and cliché as this metaphor is, it’s been useful. Every now and then, I wonder if I’m insane, why on Earth I’ve signed up to fly away from everything and everyone I know, and why I think I’m capable of taking classes in Spanish when school is challenging enough in English, but ultimately, I know this is just that nerve-racking ascent and eventually I’ll be plunging headlong into an amazing adventure that will make it worth my while.