Pale September

It’s getting to that time again when September is over and I start to question EVERYTHING…. simply because fall is here. My favourite time of year can be so melancholy when I’m in the wrong place. I recently stumbled upon an old entry from my travel blog, however, and it made me happy. It went like this:

 

      “This morning I was walking to the tube station so I could ride the hour  to Wembly and go to church and a homeless man stopped me. I gave him £1 and tried to head on my way, but he said “Wait, is that a bible?” I told him it was and we stood there for a while talking about different things. He said that he had never read any of it before and asked me some questions. We talked alot about lakes of fire and judgement and second deaths. He also wanted to know about limbo and death. It was really interesting. He asked if I could pray for him so I asked what his name was and he said “Allistair, but people call me Ginger.” I told him my name and of course, he sang the lollipop song. I had to leave for church but I told him to yell at me if he ever saw me on the street again. I shook his hand because I didn’t want him to think that I wouldn’t just because he was homeless or that his hand was as dirty and black as the street. We parted ways and ever since then, even after washing it 6 times, my right hand still burns. I’m trying not to think about why.”

       I wonder where Ginger is right now. The memory I have of him is happy, bittersweet, and regretful. I am still mad at the fact that I didn’t stay with him instead of going to church. People would’ve wondered where I was, but would’ve understood later when I told them what happened. I feel like I did him a disservice.  I really love talking to strangers just like him. I see myself in them from when I graduated from highschool and didn’t know who I was and had my spiritual meltdown of sorts. I have a relation to them that they don’t even know exists. I have no interest in bible-thumping, or getting them baptized in the nearest London water feature. I just want to help them find what they’re looking for.

A thirst for knowledge is never a thing to be frowned upon or regretted.

    It is only in doing this that I can ever really feel complete.

Strange, that.

 

Load the car and write the note…..

I love this so much. It fits me. I feel like this song has been in my subconscious since the day I was born…. and when I heard it at the Avett brothers concert on Friday, I almost couldn’t handle it. It’s the story of my life.

Listen to the words and you’ll know why.

I don’t care who you are….

…or what you think of me…

Lolcats have the ability to make my weekends better.

Strength through Music

      Today is Sunday and I work a 16 hour shift. It’s raining and dreary and I’m sitting at a desk in an office until midnight tonight. I have a stack of around 300 index cards that I have to memorize, 3 chapters to read, a paper to write, and a photo assignment to submit and I don’t really even know where to start. Other than that I have a lot of things on my to-do list to keep me busy… except I have zero dollars and seeing as how most of them call for money-spending….. it’s turning out to be a list of no-go’s.

None of this really bothers me. I’m pretty indifferent to it all, actually.

I’m not complaining in the slightest, in fact. I say all this as a means of leading up to the fact that in spite of it, for 20 minutes today I was happier than I have been in months.

Sitting at work I realized that My notecards for abnormal psych were at my apartment and I needed to ride my bike over there and get them. My supervisor gave me the go-ahead, so I left.

Walking outside and retrieving Hildegarde from the bike room, I noticed that it had gotten quite a bit chillier than when I rode to work.  On the ride  I also noticed that everything sort of had a calm wisdom about it. There were no pickup trucks rumbling down the street. No camo adorned methheads in front of the crackhouse I pass every day. The rain was sprinkling slightly, the cool wind was breezing past me, and for a second even the smell was the same.

I was in England.

I was back to those days when (if I didn’t have show-jumping) I would ride my Murry bike though Ely (Even though I wasn’t allowed to), go into pubs and watch football matches with old men who treated me like a grand daughter. I would go to Waitrose and the Gift box and look at all the things I couldn’t afford to buy. I would ride down to Watersides to visit the swans and feed them ice cream cones and look at the boats. Ride my bike past the Almonry just so I could smell the best cup of tea in England. And of course I went to my cathedral. I like to think that she misses me as much as I miss her. I would walk by the marble tombs and statues and have silent conversations with them. They were part of the cathedral. They were family.  They had seen thousands upon thousands of stories unfold. I hadn’t seen anything. I was 11.

I realize that this makes me sound like I had no friends. Don’t worry. I did. We played soccer, and tennis, and skateboarded, and watched Buffy the Vampire slayer pretty much everyday. We thought we were the coolest people in the world. We wore high heeled boots with jeans because we thought that’s what hot 11 years did. We crushed on 8th graders who wore Calvin Klein “Be”, and played light as a feather/ stiff as a board in tents in the backyard. We played on a field that later turned out to be an Anglo-Saxon burial ground, complete with treasure and a king buried on his horse. Those were the days. I miss them.

I need to go home.

Needless to say, on the bike ride to and from my apartment…. I dawdled. I dilly-dallied. I quite possibly might have even Lolligagged.

…but eventually I had to leave my Anglo-Lolli Land and go back to work… where I am now…. still not doing homework…

My cathedral

SO.MAD….

 

 

One of the reasons that we decided to move into the apartment we did was that pets were allowed. … and they still are…. except  the owners of the complex literally JUST raised the pet deposit to a MILLION KAJILLION GOOGLEPLEX dollars… so my pup dreams have just been dashed against the rocks. So dumb. So unless I suddenly come into a great deal of money by freak chance, no pup for Loll.

No furry happiness.

No licky bundle of puppy joy.

all is sorrow, all is pain.

 

But LOOK!!!!

Have you ever noticed how Baron Von Munchausen looks just like the Burger King????? They both have side swirly hair parts, even. Freaky!

How I love thee… My beautiful…..

…..my bike.

     J’adore mon CRUISER. I bought it not that long ago. It’s not even that nice of a bike… but we have a special connection, the two of us… and seeing as how it is my only mode of transportation since my nearly fatal rendezvous with water, a rock, and FESTUS, Missouri*, I think this makes perfect sense. 

..I love my bike..  at some point I wanted to name it Hildegard… but after thinking about it decided that I really didn’t want it to be a girl. So now it’s still Hildegard…. but it’s a boy. :)

Soon, however, I am going to be a MOM!!!! A Mutti! A Marmie, if you’re a Little Women fan.

I am getting….. a PUP.

I just hope it gets a long with Hildegard. I realize that at some point they will both by vying for my affection. It’s tough being LOVED by many.

*For those of you who don’t know what happened…. I’ll try to remember to post something about it at some point in the near future. It wasn’t that hilarious then. But it is now.

HABERDASHERY = My new favourite word.

……..that is all. I just wanted you to know.

 

     Yesterday was the third birthday of my beloved niece, fondly known as “The Pickle.” Apparently she had the coolest birthday party ever, involving her best friends and a little Mermaid theme…with pirates. She wanted the Little Mermaid and dragons, but changed her mind upon realizing that dragons can’t breathe fire under water…….Awesome.

Could she possibly be any more GORGEOUS?

I was not even close to this cool when I was her age.  Though this does kind of look like the kind of party I would have NOW. :)

and then there is the Pickle’s little sister AKA the SUGARBEAN.

She is ROCKIN’ that tiara.

The most fun thing you could possibly do…

        …would have to be what I just did. My sister is standing in a house full of movers at the moment, so I have all of her kids with me at the Clinic. We sat down and had breakfast (Thanks, Hardees.) and then proceeded to have the best, coolest, and most fun dance party in the UNIVERSE. We danced to the music of my most favourite kids show in the world, YO GABBA GABBA. I say it’s may favourite, because I’m pretty sure that whoever came up with it  is my twin. Seriously. My very very favourite song that we danced to is DON’T BITE YOUR FRIENDS (best. title. ever.).  Though, I’m not very good at actually following this rule :), it has a catchy beat, and it makes me laugh… a lot.

     The dancers included me, Gracie 5, Bella 3, and Colton 1 and of all the times that I wished I had a camera with me but didn’t, this ranks up there. Mostly so I could document Gracie doing the robot, or the twirly wirly.

    Hey Christa, do you remember that time that we were playing tennis, and your right foot tripped over your left one and you did this amazing dolphin kick thing and fell?  (hahaha)  Well Bella did pretty much the same thing  during the dance party and the first thing I said was, “You’re related to you aunt Christa!”

   I also wish I could have some footage of when Gracie decided to have a british accent the rest of the day. (She’s really good at it!!)

After the dance party we decided to play hide and seek…. which was really hard because I have to hide myself  AND a 3 yr old and a 1 yr old while Gracie counts to 20… rather quickly. It’s NERVEWRACKING, I tell you.

SIIIIIGH. I’m going to miss these kids SO much when they leave me for Denver.  We’ve been so close their entire lives…. They are SOOO funny. I’m going to miss making up adventures with Gracie about lizards named “Chicken Evil” (she named it, I promise.) that rule the world, and taking naps with Bella when she tried to make small talk about the weather to keep me awake……. and right this moment Colton is asleep on me, drooling ALL over my shoulder…… and he has no idea how much I will miss that.

There is no end to the love you can give…

… when you change your point of view…

 

I am going to share with you some things that are good.

-aka- a few of my recent addictions  I am very fond of…

MUSIC: Iron & Wine, Mason Jennings, Belle and Sebastian, Elliott Smith, and the Shins.  Byootiful…just byootiful.

BOOKS: The graveyard book and Coraline by Neil Gaiman. Don’t read them right before you go to bed, though. Just trust me.

ART: Jackson Pollock. I’m doing a 5 x 8 ft piece inspired by him and Mondrian…. sort of.  It looks good so far… I bet my brother will be happy to not have a ginormous canvas covering our living room floor anymore. I’ll be happy to hang it up. I like life so much better when my hands are constantly covered in paint.

BIKE RIDING: I love my cruiser. I want to have a photoshoot with it. Someday.

MOVIES: Singin’ in the rain. I would like to go back in time and dance with Gene Kelly. …for serious.

PUPS: It occurred to me that I need one of my very ownsies. I’m keeping it in mind.

That’s about it, I guess…    Oh yeah, and this is what I would look like if I were a nun.

Desiteratum

Life isn’t always easy, in fact, it never is. It’s cold and sad and hard, and sometimes people die or lie to you, and sometimes it’s  your brother and sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes it’s you and sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes your own heart cheats you and there isn’t anything you can possibly do about it. Sometimes you feel damaged.. like a lost cause, and even though people care… there’s some sort of invisible concrete wall between you and them and no matter how much they want to, they will never be able to graze the surface. You just have to find a way for it not to ruin you. After doing this 50 times in one month.. barely escaping once again by the hat on your head, you get tired. You don’t really want to run anymore… or try or really exist at all. But what does surrendering do? Where would you go?

….I like life.

..I like pomegranates and puppies, dandelions and street performers. It’s hard for me to be sad for too long because I have friends that other people don’t get to have. I have a family that nearly No ONE gets to have. I have  sisters who reminisce with me about the hilariously quirky things we did when we were kids, and then even though she and I are both well above the age of childhood, we still do them, and have just as much fun as before. I’ve lived and traveled all over the world and I can see it every time I look in the mirror. My life is a piece of music that has never been heard by anyone but God and he thinks it’s beautiful. Why shouldn’t I?