From the neighbourhood

It's Rosh Hashana and there are 12 year olds running up and down the stairs outside setting off bottle rockets.  The girls all have long wavy hair and the boys are all wearing soccer jerseys.

Last Tuesday, the biggest dust storm in the last 15 years moved south from Syria and Lebanon.  The sea disappeared.  The city disappeared.  For a day, everything was yellow.  And for the week, everything (everything) was hazy.  The humidity hit 90 percent and the temperature hovered around the same.

It was uncomfortable, but in a strange way, it reminded me that I have a lot of practice weathering terrible weather.  I read lots of weather articles.  Did you know a really, really large dust storm is called a haboob, which according to one article I read means "violent wind"?

On Friday afternoon, it cleared away.  I'm sitting at the kitchen table now, and I can see the sea again.  And occasional flashes of light as kids in the street blow things up.

Where do weather patterns go when they're done moving?

Khamseen

view of the city in the morning--not a filter, a dust storm


dust and condensation collecting on the windows in the 87% humidity.


"dust"

Not a robot

We ran out of gas in out flat last week.  As a result, I've been eating more yogurt than usual (which is to say a lot of yogurt).  And pomegranates, as they're back in season.  There are worse times to find your stove rendered temporarily useless.

Between the three of us (a small and vivacious Indian, a tall and beautiful German, and me), attempts to fix this problem have involved fiddling with the various gas tanks in the back of the building and calling out through the window of our fourth floor apartment to each other to check if the stove is turning on--cries of "it's still not working. Are you sure you know which is ours???" mixing with loud meows from the massive feral cat population of Haifa and music from the perpetual Arab weddings that seem to always be going on.

Summer isn't over, which shouldn't be a surprise, but is.



What happens when these things we learn as Truths growing up--September means it'll be winter in the not-so-distant future and you can only eat pomegranates in December and if you smile at someone they will greet you warmly in response--turn out not to be so true?  Oh the multitudes the world can contain when it's only distance to change all of that.

I've been here for over a year.

There are still people and places I miss so much it hurts--like chronic shin splints from not giving up running even when you should take a break, like noticing a huge scrape on your forearm that's started to sting now the adrenaline has worn off, like paper cuts from writing love letters but being careless, like a burn from a curling iron used in a moment of vanity.  Sometimes like getting the wind knocked out of you by the truth of it all.  I don't think it will ever go away.  Not really.  Not all the way.

(and yet.)

The world is not so easy on girls who imagined themselves to be robots while growing up and turned to have hearts after all.

(and yet. and yet. and yet.)

Iceland

In Iceland, we slept six to a tent every night for a week and a half, hiked 26 miles over three days through Hornstrandir, drove around the country on the Ring Road, ate our weight in hot dogs, played cards, sang loudly in the backseat, made tons of Mountain House meals, and generally had the best time in the world.

wildfires

on tuesday, it rains.
it is good news to hear among the updates your mom relays on the phone.
the relief in her voice is a welcome guest who has hung up his coat and will stay for dinner.

she tells you:
1. did you know that the neighbour's daughter got into art school? she's graduating in the spring.
2. it finally rained, you know, and we've all stopped coughing. your brother has resumed marathon training and your dad has stopped rubbing his eyes.
3. the grocery store has finally switched to summer hours.

it rains, and the chalk fades.
the neighbour's daughter, who just got into art school, redraws the hopscotch course for her little brother.
someone sends you a picture.
each number is a different animal--the three is a dragon. the seven is a stork.

it rains, and the wildfires go out.

a place you once loved has stopped burning.
a boy you once loved has stopped calling.
a game you once played has washed away.

on tuesday, timezones and oceans away,
you wake up to clear skies.

International Date Line

The last time the fourth of July was a Saturday, I was on an airplane crossing the International Date Line from Friday, July 3, 2009 to Sunday, July 5, 2009 on the way home from Australia with the Anchorage Youth Symphony for a music festival.  The principal bassist spent the multiple-flight journey singing "Saturday in the Park" by Chicago.  It was the summer after the 11th grade.

I think about that summer from time to time.  Early in the year, the symphony had decided to go to Australia.  Early in the year, the principal oboist realized she couldn't go.  Early in the year, understanding that someone would have to play principal on Beethoven's ninth in the Sydney Opera House, I committed.  Late in the year, mostly out of curiosity, I applied for a language scholarship with the National Security Language Initiative for Youth.  Late in the year, I was accepted to study Persian in Dushanbe, Tajikistan on a full scholarship for six weeks.

The dates conflicted, of course.

We always get to where we're going, I think, but sometimes it requires a fair amount of course correction.  In 2009, I was getting ready to start applying to colleges and auditioning for music scholarships.  By 2012, I had dropped all dreams of a music major and was studying languages in the Middle East.

There's a part, about 16 minutes into the final movement of the ninth symphony, where (and believe me, if I could describe this in a less cliché way, I would) the choir sounds like the heavens opening up--and suddenly--the low strings take over and it gets a bit minor:  still spiritual, but with some suffering.  That summer, I sat on stage counting rests and cried for things that come together so flawlessly and for things that are still so uncertain.

Happy 4th.  Have a good weekend, everyone.

dropped stitch

in the end, my hands feel like they have been covered in honey.
this was nothing to be transcended.
this was bare feet in the river and hands sticky with avoiding promises.

in the end, i tugged so hard on loose threads
the whole hat came undone.
maybe i am your dropped stitch,
or maybe you are mine,
but now all either of us have is a mess of yarn.

it's summer anyway.
i wouldn't have used any sort of knitted anything for a long time anyway.

Tea kettle

At one point, I had my public library card number memorized. This was the outcome of a particularly slow last year and a half of high school. My friends all had boyfriends. Nothing took up enough of my time. I spent a lot of it reserving books via inter-library loan and typing and re-typing a 14 digit number into the Anchorage Public Library website.

I remember, very distinctly, feeling like I didn’t have enough time to read. (For context, I was probably averaging two books a week. Maybe one non-fiction to every 10 YA lit books where someone smooches someone else at the end.) I figured, like I always figure, that when that period of my life ended I would have time to do some serious reading.

But no one told me college libraries don’t have fiction sections. Gone, gone are the days of wrapping myself in a mattress pad at night because I was too busy reading to put new sheets on my bed after laundry day.

I also remember tugging the ends of my hair and willing it to grow at age 15, thinking, my hair won’t be as long as I want it to be until I’m a senior in college and by then I’ll be so old that I won’t care about my looks anymore and all will have been wasted.

I am a tea kettle, constantly brewing misconceptions.

I hate talking about the passage of time and the weather, but: is it March next week? March last year was seeped in so much unsettlement, the nascent stages of all the emotions that grew into tall trees in the fall. It doesn’t seem so long ago.

I realize my blog suffers both the weaknesses of being infrequently updated and short on personal information--especially when I travel to new places! Do new things! Climb onto new rooftops and eat new fruits! So, insufficient though it may be, here is a brief summary of events:

Three weeks ago, seven boys who were watching the Super Bowl saw a commercial for sending flowers, which reminded them of a friend who’s address they asked me for. And then they sent me flowers too, finding themselves, no doubt, much deeper in the Israeli flower business than they'd ever expected. “Whoa, who loves you?” all the women in my office asked. To which I could truthfully respond, “Seven boys watching football in a bar in Alaska.” The flowers are dying now, which my roommate so helpfully pointed out over the weekend. ("Dead. Like your heart.”)

I went to Budapest last weekend. It was cold and crisp and I wore my favorite hat and walked across bridges and observed monuments to communism that towered tall above me and contemplated how small I am in the universe (so small) and how quickly we move on (at a moderate pace, it seems). When we got there and I squeezed myself off the budget airline, we had to run through a chilly night, chasing a bus I wasn’t sure was there. It was, and I remembered suddenly that I wasn’t over any of this.

Two weeks ago, I woke up early on a Saturday to play Frisbee on the beach. It felt both like a summer day and familiar. I threw the Frisbee into the road (unimpressive) and gracefully jumped a fence to run into oncoming traffic and retrieve it (impressive). We drank fresh passionfruit juice in the afternoon. Someone got sunburned. It rained the entire following week.

not so good at this

in the fall, i learned about writing things down that will never not be true.
sometimes this means that words are blue willow plates.
sometimes this means saying almost nothing at all.
sometimes it means waiting until something can be true before it can be said.
you learned no such thing.

in the corner of the diner you work at most nights,
the evening shift workers come in for coffee like clockwork.
you know their faces better than mine by now.
they ask you about your days,
and you fold dreams into their napkins.
mid-afternoon is all too often taken for granted,
you tell me when our kaleidoscopes match up for a moment.

i am sand stuck in a bathing suit.
i am a jellyfish sting on your leg.
you are salt water in my eyes.
i forgot the sunscreen. our sandwiches are hot.
there's only one water bottle.
you lost your sunglasses in the ocean.
the convenience store was out of all popsicle flavors except grape.
we are not so good at this.

i will never unfold napkin dreams at midnight.
i will write blue willow plate letters
and wait to send them until the sentiments feel true.
i will sometimes match my kaleidoscope to yours.
i will pass on the grape popsicles.
i will wait until i hang up to cry.

Kumquats

"You're livin' my dream life," I said earlier, to a friend who's an immensely talented photographer and spent her day putting those talents to use. We went back and forth several times--the kind of meaningless complimentary chatter that could be put on paper, then shredded and used to fill Easter baskets--before I conceded, "I mean, I'm living my dream life too. I just forget sometimes."

I do. Because real life isn't anyone's dream--to be enjoyed while wrapped in blankets and slipped out of when you've had enough. You scrape your knees and put too many rocks in your backpack sometimes, which is the kind of minor weight and hurt that's enough to distract anyone from how good it is (good: 68 degree days in January, strawberry season, supportive friends in front of you and forever away/bad: ever-present heartbreak).

Anyway, it's January 22. My internet game is the worst it's ever been in my entire life. I would make a New Year's resolution to blog more! or post more pictures! or whatever, whatever, whatever; but I've never been into New Year's resolutions (don't tell me when to set my goals. I'll do it when I want, which is never in the middle of winter), and I'm really not into raising anyone's expectations at the moment. This could be the only blog post of 2015. This could be the only blog post of the foregoing decade. This could just be another draft I never actually post.

But it's a Thursday night and the year is young and so many things in my life are unfamiliar in a way that's becoming routine and I'm here writing on my laptop, so why not/here we are/I'll always come back to this anyway.

I ate so many kumquats I made myself sick last month. "Wow, what are these tiny oranges! They are so sour and great!" I thought to myself one afternoon in early December. And then, perhaps 20 tiny, sour oranges later, there was enough acid in my stomach to make a zillion batteries.

Sometimes I feel all too stripped down. A lot of my life used to hang off my arms or drape over my shoulders or braid itself into my hair, and I didn't realize the weight wasn't supposed to be there until it wasn't. When the edges you thought were yours turn out to be empty air, it's enough to make anyone pause.

on my calendar this year

you are 16 feet tall.
in september, when you exhale, the leaves fall.
you are full of stories,
and slowly i am too--
one by one, lining the crooks of my arms
with moments i shouldn't know about,
forgetting that once i used to
use my arms to pull myself up
onto rooftops
and tree branches
and sides of the pool--
instead of holding on.

in january, when you cry,
the snow melts. on bad days,
sometimes i can see grass,
dead and brown. it's too soon for spring.
you are as tall as the cherry tree
my mom planted 8 years ago,
you don't know what you're doing to the ground.

in july, when we go swimming in the lake,
the water level rises.
just enough that we lose our lunch,
which was left carelessly close to the shore.
i forget that i used to eat before swimming,
you are busy floating on your back, and do not notice.

all year, i will love you.
all year, i will wade through your rivers,
even when my rainboots have holes in them and
my feet are cold.
all year, i will tell you about
the weather
the candle my roommate just bought
the song i heard on the bus in the morning
what i made for dinner
what i would have made for you, if you were here too.

all year, i will wonder if the 10 and a half extra feet you have on me is making this too complicated.
i will wonder sometimes if it's better not to melt the snow;
if it's better to not even bother swimming, and just eat lunch at home in my kitchen.
all year, i will wonder if i should use my arms for climbing again,
and just let go.

roadtrip promises

if you take the wheel, i will spread out this map
we bought at the gas station 15 miles ago
and tell you which way to go.

i will hold your hand when we're out of the city
and there are no more stoplights or traffic.

i will say "just one more hour, i think!"
even though i'm not so good at predictions.

i will peel you an orange,
shell pistachios for you,
unwrap granola bars for you.

i won't change the music if i don't want to,
but i'll consider your feedback.

for every farm animal we pass, you get one point;
for every orchard, i get one.

on nights when we have to keep going,
i'll take over the driving. you can stretch out in the backseat.
i'll listen to the news to stay awake.
when you wake up at 4:30 a.m. and ask if i want to switch,
ask if the empty roads are getting lonely,
ask if i want company,
i'll tell you it's ok, i don't mind so much,
the sun will be coming up soon anyway.
we'll get there soon anyway.