back to school

I've been feeling pretty lazy since I arrived at my parents' place--watching back-to-back episodes of Nightmare Tattoo while my mom cooks for me. Perhaps it's because at this time next week, I'll be knee deep in school again.

New beginnings breakfast

I haven't 'gone back to school' since the fall of 2001. Ironically my parents live in a college town, replete with old stone buildings, manicured parks, and late night coffee shops. Yesterday the campus was overrun with incoming freshmen, I mean, first year students.

Driving past the park full of young, anxious pre-students walking awkwardly with one or two excited parents in tow, I reminisced a time, over ten years ago now, when I was that anxious student.

When I went away to college at eighteen, I had never been away from home and family for more than two weeks at a time. I thought nothing of my new school's location or academic reputation, I was too busy trying not to cry in my top bunk. I found out later that my roommate was on the bottom bunk doing the same.

That same roommate is now married, has been for over ten years. And I, well...I have a dog. But visiting a coffee house on campus, I was keenly aware of how different I feel now, fifteen years after my first week in college.

I feel stronger, more confident, and less scared of everything new. I don't have to try so hard to fit in, to not be noticed.  Mostly, I just feel I've earned the right to my place in the world, the right to rub people the wrong way if necessary.

At a local crêpe shop for breakfast, butterfly paintings on the wall reminded me that growth is natural, and transformation comes as much, if not more, from being alive than education. 

After four years of undergraduate study, I told myself I wasn't going back to school unless I needed more education to do what I wanted to do in life.

Now here I am, ready to go.

OneArmGirl 

road journal: roughing it

Just a girl, the fire she made, a bottle of wine, and her laptop. Can life get any better....?

OneArmGirl

from the road

I, like Jack Kerouac, am writing from the road. Two days and one bag of Honey Dijon Kettle chips in, I find myself in Oklahoma. 

I'm feeling pretty positive about this first long distance trip on my own. I've had help along the way, from the gentlemanly angel at a rest stop who informed me that the fluid leaking from the bottom of my car was merely condensation from excessive air conditioner use, to country-living friends who supplied me with butter dipped artichoke and a comfy bed.

Here are some of my favorite moments thus far...

Keeper the dog faces off with a very territorial (and playful) kitty. I think they both enjoyed it.

Church in the Pecos River valley of Puerto de Luna (or Moon Door), a place quickly becoming a favorite for me.

Scrambled salsa eggs on journal. If only I wrote more than I took pictures of my writing, I might be getting somewhere.

And now I must get my car-seat-flattened glutei off this couch and back on the road. 

OneArmGirl 

when the hangover clears

I didn't want to write a post this week, as you may have already guessed from my obvious disregard for my own deadline. And this for wholly undeserving reasons, like having too much to drink the night before.

This will be taken up with Human Resources and disciplinary action taken accordingly, I can assure you.

For starters, let's just say I am going to drive 2,000 miles next week with only a dog for company. Well, and a recently downloaded David Sedaris audiobook. Can you blame me if I sow some wild oats this week? I'm only preparing myself for the crushing self-loathing that will undoubtably set in somewhere around Oklahoma City.

I've spent a considerable amount of time this week laying in bed, thinking about how much I am going to miss my bedroom, my living room, kitchen and bath...the whole place, really. I'm what you might call a homebody. Is that one word? Spellcheck seems to think so, but I'm pretty sure there was a time when 'spellcheck' was not a word. Oh, English language, you tricky little deviant. It's enough to make a grammarian commit suicide.

The best guard against suicide is gratitude. It never fails to surprise me how many people seem affected by what feels like my insignificant life course. Many friends have expressed their love for me over the past weeks. It's a nice reminder that we don't have to be anything amazing to make a difference, to be missed when we're gone. Even if it's just going to New England for a while.

I can hear fireworks from the ballpark, which must mean we won. I love fireworks. Is there a more fleeting celebration of the present? A more reckless disregard for the future? 

We've won. No matter what, life is meant to be breathed deeply, every second celebrated, even the freedom to be hungover.

OneArmGirl

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road ready

You ever have one of those days that grabs you by the heels and pulls you out of bed?

Yeah, that's the day I'm having. We'll all be lucky if I manage to stay focused long enough to get this post written.

Just savin' lives

After last week's rather discouraging news, this week brings some of a different variety. I got a call on Tuesday confirming that I've been accepted into the Fall training session for therapeutic riding instructors in Connecticut.

This has initiated a flurry of activity in the remaining weeks before I leave. As I write, my car is in the shop getting a new catalytic convertor; I've called the vet to ready Keeper the Dog to road trip with me; and I've arranged for some Franciscan priests to come for dinner. You know, the usual big trip checklist.

So, theoretically, CPR certification card in hand, I'll be hitting the road in a couple weeks, motoring miles that on some continents would take me through several countries.

[Pause for the making of several zillion phone calls.]

[Another pause for a nap]

Good news: my car is out of surgery and ready to come home. Prepare yourselves for pics from the road...

OneArmGirl

dream, dream, dream

This goes out to the dreamers.

On Monday I received a long-awaited reply from the second literary agent whom I'd queried for Confessions of a One-Armed Girl. She regretfully informed me that she was unable to take me on as a client at this time. I expected this, but because there's always that chance that this is the one, it was a letdown nonetheless.

But the hardest to take were her critiques to my manuscript, which to her credit, she'd actually taken the time to give. Too much back story, she said, and not a clear story arc. What little air was left in my balloon of hope quickly deflated.

Concurrently this week, I am awaiting reply from an East Coast therapeutic riding instructor training school. I applied to their Fall certification session, which was not unlike the process of putting a book proposal together. Apparently, the older you get, the more paperwork life requires.

While at aerial practice last night, I received an encouraging message from Admissions that, though final decisions have yet to be made, indicated I was looking good.

Perhaps that's what gave me the extra oomph to get through class. Near the end, I was working on a one-handed straddle up, pulling my legs up and over my head. More advanced aerialists stood around brainstorming adaptive techniques.

"You're going to do this," they said. "Don't you see the difference in your strength and ability since you first started coming?" Jo asked incredulously. Sometimes it takes other people to see yourself.

Driving home, muscles tripping on endorphins, I considered the difficulty of dreams. It's not just all the work that goes into getting where you want to go; it's the exhaustion of not knowing if you'll ever get there at all. It's emotional wear and tear.

Will my book ever get published? I wonder, as I berate myself for lost motivation and belief.

This morning while perusing Amazon instead of working on my post, I stumble on a novel written by a local writer who is probably eight years my junior. And though I want the book to be horrible, the plot intrigues me. But mostly I'm jealous of her success, and immediately assume she's much more focused and diligent in her career, that she probably doesn't drink sodas or watch The Colbert Report. I think she surely gets up each morning in the muse for writing, stories pouring out unhindered by dishes that need washing and a dog that needs walking.

But the truth is, following your dreams doesn't always look like that. Sometimes it looks more like a pitt stop on the dream raceway, recovering from the wear and tear. Sometimes you have to toss the manuscript and start over. I don't know if it's that bad, but I could sure use a good editor, someone to help put an arc in my story. Or maybe I need a different agent. Dreams often require some tweaking. But if they're real, and you stick close to the source, you can't give up. Dreams won't let you.

Today, I think I'll start with some journaling. Then I'll probably have to wash the dishes.

OneArmGirl