Until We Meet Again...

Gram and me!

What can I say in honor of my Gram… she left me with so much.  Gram made every moment a teaching moment, either instilling in me my incredible nerdiness and desire to learn, or recognizing it and feeding it… or perhaps a combination of the two.  She taught me to read and write, so well in fact, that at school they made me help the older kids.  She was very proud of that.  She taught me to spell, to do math, to bake bread, to fry the perfect egg, to recognize the beauty in the natural world, to ignore negativity, to be a good sport, to be patient (this works sometimes), to shoot, to utilize my brain in every way possible, to do the best I can at everything I do, that I was capable of anything I wanted to do, and most importantly, to be honest with myself as well as others no matter what. 

She played a very strong and important role in my childhood and life, one that helped to shape who I am today.  She always made me feel loved, especially when others were doing the opposite.  She always kept my playroom stocked with art supplies, and always played with me rather than telling me to go play. 

I think Gram felt like she had partially died the day she became tethered to an oxygen machine.  Even more so when she had to give up her garden and flowers and move into the nursing home, and a little more the day her legs stopped cooperating and the wheelchair became her transportation.  Every day I wished I could give her physical freedom again, it was torture for her to feel so dependent, and torture for me to watch it.  She always made light of the situation though, taking every opportunity to give the nurses some shit or yell at Paula Deen to take off her gaudy rings if she was going to be mixing food with her hands. 

I made it home in time to spend her last 6 hours and 45 minutes on this earth by her side, and will be forever grateful that she waited for me; she chose to leave her body with my hand on her chest and just the two of us in the room.  It was a humbling, beautiful and bittersweet experience that I will cherish forever, just as I will the 27 years I was blessed to have her for.  The pain of her loss is sharp, but the joy I feel for her return home and the freedom from her body far outweighs my sadness.  She is free, and I am blessed.  

Our last picture together, on her 81st birthday last year

Until we meet again, my beautiful Gram.  Thank you for everything, from the bottom of my heart.  

With endless love and gratitude,

Your granddaughter

Hooray!

- for finally ordering a laptop cooler so my dinosaur of a Dell stops shutting off randomly due to overheating. Particularly during Skype conversations. 

- for my job and my awesome boss, and for my upcoming vacation to a most delicious place filled with so many people that I love. 

- for married life and truly having an other half after all.

- for our sweet loving beautiful doggies.

- for getting a water softener installed today and reclaiming my skin and hair from the harshly dry Arizona desert. 

- for hanging out alone in my underwear for an entire day. 

-for P90X and going back to my natural hair color. 

- for Andrew Belle, Florence + the Machine, Lissie, Lady Gaga, Mumford & Sons, Adele, Jessie J and the final installation of my nerdy nerdy Harry Potter love affair.

- for confirming that I did inherit my Gram’s cooking gene.

- for Pandora, my Droid, Netflix and Amazon.

- for living somewhere completely jacked up with Vitamin D. Every. Day.

- for spiritual evolution.

- for making lists of awesomeness.

The waves

I had no intention of posting this.

4/4: I’m worried that I’ve lost my motivation and/or passion. Not completely, I mean I haven’t changed as a person I don’t feel, I just feel like it has gone down a few notches, or maybe gone a different direction that I haven’t picked up on yet.  Perhaps being in an environment filled with so much of the opposite of motivation and passion and watching the gradual implosion of humanity at its own hands is starting to bring me down, discourage me, question any reason for hope that we as humans are going to be able to pull our heads out of our asses before we destroy ourselves.  I contemplate abandoning all my pie in the sky save the world plans and focusing on saving the animals instead.  Their destruction and endangerment isn’t their own fault.  I know I’m sensitive to various things, especially things that result when a handful of shitty humans are making life incredibly difficult and/or horrible for a very large number of other humans. 

I feel like it has gotten harder for me to meditate, harder for me to see the silver lining, harder for me to envision the future and where I may belong in it.  This is the first time in many years that I haven’t had a ‘plan’ or next step laid out.  There was always a move, or the next college or degree, then another move, then Peace Corps, then another move… and now I’m in a job that I’m really enjoying while not having homework every night for the first time pretty much ever.  I have time to spend with my new husband (4/18 note: oh yeah we went to the courthouse and got married on April 1^st. It was super simple, quick, and deliciously romantic and I’m the happiest little newlywed ever. I never thought I would be this cheesy.), my dogs, I have time to grow plants, cook awesome meals, workout, keep my house clean, read what I want to, watch movies, and still sleep a full 8 hours a night.  Life is pretty effing amazing. But it’s still a strange feeling of non-direction.  I mean clearly I’m going in a direction, the direction I’ve been trying to go in for a long time.  There just isn’t a defined next step like I’m used to having on the horizon.  I haven’t had time yet to do any painting, so that could be contributing to my feeling of being slightly lost I suppose.  But writing helps too, and I haven’t been doing as much of that either. 

I’ve always struggled with the whole ‘living in the moment’ thing…I’ve written about it many times, and now that I don’t have said next step in mind, I suppose this somewhat forces me to live more in the now.  Which is great, I’ve been trying to do it for a long time. 

Two weeks later…

Wow that was depressing…I’m feeling much more relaxed and getting more and more comfortable by the day.  With the new lifestyle, with how I’m filling my thoughts, with humanity again, with mentally moving away from my experience with Peace Corps.  My job is providing me with new and unexpected personal and spiritual learning experiences on nearly a daily basis, and my optimistic perspective is coming back around with a deeper layer and thickened skin. 

Regarding the art aspect of my life, I read a great blog that emphasized simply ‘showing up to the table.’  You can’t create anything if you’re not standing in front of your surface of choice with the tool of your choice in your hand. So I did, and it worked, and I feel much better now.  I will continue to ‘show up to the table’, without an over-analyzed agenda, and see where it takes things. 

It’s getting very warm here, much to my happiness. I’m a bit frightened for the deathly temperatures of summer, but I so far I think it will totally be worth it.  I’ve planted some cacti, and one of them is already sprouting a little cactus baby. I’m so proud, as I’ve killed many a plant in my day.  I don’t want to jinx myself, but as of this moment, I’m keeping 10 cacti, 3 house plants, and 1 flower alive.  If things continue in this direction, I hope to move onto planting some tasty vegetables.  *fingers crossed* So desert life is going well so far :)

The Arizona Chapter.

Scarlet & Henry

I sit so serene and joyous at my Gram’s antique secretary’s desk that I refinished in a thin wash of white, bathing in the magic of Adele’s new (amazing) album, fantasizing that I could sing like that, and finally gaining some semblance of calmness in my life again.  I’m not sure of everyone’s definition of calm, but mine is starting to appear.  Our new puppies are laying on their bed spooning at my feet, they are the greatest puppies ever, we love them so much :) I now have my own transportation to get to my new job, which I love so far, we are 99.9% unpacked, and I have Tavche Gravche in the oven nomnomnom.

Reverse three weeks… the road trip across the country in a Uhaul through what essentially was a 3 day blizzard was quite the adventure and led to two unexpected overnights in cheap hotels in order to avoid death-by-folk-unskilled-at-driving-in-the-snow or rocketing off the freeway ourselves due to awesomely high-quality Uhaul tires.  The scenery was beautiful however, see more pictures here:    https://picasaweb.google.com/enger.emily - and we made it safely and were greeted by the sun and 80 degrees of joy.  We scored and found a great house right away, and were able to move in before I even had to take the Uhaul back.  The next couple weeks were a blur of money spending, furniture buying, house supplying, grocery shopping, etc.  I, by some miracle, got the first job I interviewed for, doing the work I want to be doing, for the kind of boss I want to be working for, with the kind of organization that I never thought I would be at, but which I am enjoying immensely and learning an incredible amount about another culture.  The Ph.D. will be going on the back burner for awhile but I feel that my educational desires are definitely being fulfilled in other ways.  I’m also working on a project with MyBillOfRights.org to install a beautiful monument of the document in Bolin Plaza, downtown Phoenix.  It is a fabulous organization with an important message, check it out :)

James officially proposed on March 3^rd…as I was waking up he was on his knee bedside, this time with a ring. I said yes of course :) Wedding to follow in 2013…

Still decompressing from the brief-but-highly-impactful Peace Corps experience.  I met some really wonderful people that I will never forget.  I became slightly more cynical about the world through my individual experience, but I’m gaining the humanistic optimism back with time…though at a different angle.   I’m sure the more time that goes by I’ll be able to more comfortably describe my experience. 

In May, I’m headed to California to join my best friend and her family for the NorCal Ride Ataxia, which was started by Ash’s cousin Kyle. Kyle is one of the most amazing humans I have ever met and feel blessed to know him.  He is an inspiration to human kind. There is a documentary about him and Friederich’s Ataxia coming out soon, watch the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMD6YfZeXV8.  Its ok to cry, I do every time.

I’m getting very slightly acclimated to Phoenix, and those of you that know me well know that I’m incredibly directionally and distance impaired.  The only thing that helped me survive in Seattle was seeing the water. So down here, you can imagine that I have nothing really to help me in that department.  Thankfully, I got a Droid which saves my ass regarding navigation.  I can finally get to work and back without it now, which makes me worry that having constant GPS in my hand may further impair my ability by causing my complete dependence on technology rather than trying to learn how to tell where the hell I am and how far 1 mile actually is. 

Entirely new things this move has brought into my life include a car payment and living with a male as well as sharing a bed with him.  I’ve always been very lucky to have not had a car payment, but starting fresh here did not facilitate that privilege.  Signing that paperwork was definitely a stressor, but a necessary evil.  And anyone that has also moved in with a partner understands the adjustment that comes with that.  An interesting ride, but a very fun one at the same time :)

All in all, the chaos spiral has nearly come to a point once again and life is pretty fabulous, as it generally is.  This past few months have definitely been a bifurcation point in my life, and I feel that I’ve come out on the upper half of it and am fully equipped for the next phase and chapter. I'm happy to be home in the states and moving forward.

Onward and upward,

EM

Adjustment

So the transition back is somewhat rough so far, more so than I expected it to be after only 5 months.  Before getting here, I dreaded having to talk to anyone and explain myself a million times, but I’ve gotten far more joy and love and happiness that I’m home than anyone caring why I actually came home.  The question I’ve gotten most is:  “Weren’t they feeding you over there?”  Apparently I’m super skinny.  I’m sure I will fatten back up right quick with my mom feeding me and Mexican food at my disposal.  Aside from not really wanting to talk to anyone that isn’t in my immediate circle at the moment, it feels very very good to be home. 

The hardest part about this whole thing for me has been reconciling in my head the fact that I’ve wanted to join Peace Corps since I was a kid, and then I got partway through my service and realized that it wasn’t what I wanted to be doing at all.  I tried for quite awhile over there to tell myself that it was normal, but it wasn’t until I was actually happy again that I realized how incredibly unhappy and not myself I was while I was there.  I’m now legitimately excited about the future again, and what is to come. I was there long enough to learn what I needed to learn from the brief experience, and I am ready to move forward.  I know I want to stick close to home (meaning stateside) for awhile, and in other decision affirming news, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer yesterday.  The doctor is very optimistic and encouraging, so we are optimistic and encouraged about the road ahead.  In other words, I would have come home anyway as soon as I received this news.  All good energy, positive vibes, prayers and love for my mom and her boobie is greatly, greatly appreciated :)

James and I will be cruising to Phoenix in a Uhaul on February 25^th to begin the next chapter, and I couldn’t be more excited.  Pre-Peace Corps, Phoenix was one of the last places I wanted to be, and now it feels like I’m headed to the joyous vitamin D loaded mecca for old people of my dreams.  The blogs may be sporadic for awhile as I get my head on straight again, but the writing soothes my soul so I’ll get back to my normal rate eventually, perhaps more.  I don’t want to start writing too much that is in my head right now and regret it later, so I’ll be a bit withdrawn for awhile…

Onward and upward :)

EM