Crazy lady travels free

I was just thinking about when my coworker and I took a group of kids to England and France a few summers ago, and things associated with that.  At the end of the trip, I stayed in France to go visit my old stomping grounds down south, and so I left the group to go home on a flight with my coworker (per our own full agreement and arrangement ahead of time).  I waited too long to decide to do that, so I had to pay $350 for the flight change (Ugh).  We also each had to pay $937.50 for the trip in the first place (Meh).  Therefore, I had to pay a total of $1287.50 for a 10-day trip that included all accommodations, food, tours, and transport, and another ten days on location at my own expense, which is really not bad at all.  At all.

However – and this is a BIG however – as part of our arranging and hosting this trip in the first place, the tour company gave us each a training trip.

Mine, as I selected it, was a long weekend trip, with food, housing, tours, and transportation included, to downtown Rome, Italy.  Therefore, my just-under 1300 dollars actually got me two separate trips to Europe, with almost all expenses paid for most of the time on the trips.

I really do come up with the craziest stuff to have happen in my life.  And – what is possibly the best part of this all – I don’t even seem to notice how absurd it all is, until I find myself ruminating on this and thats one afternoon, years later, and it suddenly hits me that, say, taking a free trip to Europe is not a normal thing in life.  I take this moment to nod my head to my cousin for the question she exasperatedly declared one evening at my apartment a few years ago: “Hannah, do you even know what real life is like?”

Indeed, fair cousin, it seems I do not know that most of the time – reality bites, so I live somewhere else, and I love it.  🙂

Post-a-day 2018

Take care, friends

I am strong as a person, and I know it – I can take care of somebody else, easily.

That’s why one of the most appealing things to me in a partner is someone who will take care of me…, because I sometimes just want to take a break from taking care of everyone else – of anyone, actually – and have someone do it for me, instead of the other way around.

But I feel as though I am failing as a friend, if I ask that of a friend… it’s only acceptable, it seems, with a partner in life…, but maybe that’s just because the best kind of friends aren’t really in my everyday life right now, and so I can’t even imagine it being acceptable behavior, their taking care of me for once.

And then this reminds me of something from today.

I stopped in on an old co-worker’s class today while I was subbing, and the prayer she read to begin class was about reaching out to those who seem upset or alone, because, how does one know that that person has friends to cheer him up?… I might be the only one who’s even considered cheering the person up, it said… perhaps the person feels just as lonely as I do, and just no one has ever taken the time to see, it read…

And I cried during the prayer, because I felt like that person who feels so alone, but who no one would consider might ever feel like she’s all on her own and alone, with no one even to check on how she’s really doing, and not just how she might look from the outside…

Post-a-day 2018

Today’s list

Oktoberfest…

semi-unplanned friend visit…

Mid-Autumn Festival…

car accident…

Earthdance….

… with origami and Braille, both taught by a blind man with a blind man’s wristwatch…

stopping for toilet paper…

and a house gathering…

all with a rain storm pouring over us off and on…

How was this only one day?

Post-a-day 2018

Words worth more than gold

After a discussion over the phone with a college student calling to ask for my monetary donation to the study abroad scholarships at her school, – which I exchanged for encouragement to the girl and for sharing with her various specialties related to where she would be studying abroad this coming spring semester (for which she continuously thanked me delightedly, and which she declared was a million times better for her life than a monetary donation to the fund would have been, anyway) – I wrote a sort of poem.

You see, she recommended I write it, because what I was sharing with her, she said, sounded like poetry.

So, find in the following photo the first draft of the poem we discussed today, which I said I would write for my weblog tonight, and which I tapped out on a typewriter(!!!) this afternoon.

Post-a-day 2018

Writing

I’m beginning to feel, after someone asked me about my writing this morning, that the main reason I like and am drawn to writing so much, is that it is an opportunity for me to express myself without being interrupted, put down (directly), or even ignored (noticeably)… I get to be myself and to express myself, no matter who might be nearby.

I’m not sure if I like that or not, though…

I’ll ponder for another day or month or so, and see where it gets me… perhaps it’ll be breathtakingly phenomenal, when I have a breakthrough out of what I find in that pondering.

Post-a-day 2018

The person I want to be climbed rocks

I went bouldering in an indoor rock gym tonight.  It hurts now in my hands, in a very ‘ouch’ way.  My palms felt like fire when I showered in the warm water, and it felt like I was rubbing them raw when I was merely soaping up my body and washing my hair.  I imagine that even more of my body will ache tomorrow, in a good way.  I’m glad I went climbing with this old friend.  Apparently I am terrified of jumping down while facing a wall… I’d never noticed that it made a difference to me, jumping down from something forward versus backward… I guess I just hadn’t ever considered a blind and backward jump for anything before tonight.  Anyway…

And now, since I gave the girls an assignment on it today when subbing for creative writing, I’ll throw in a bit of free poetry, slam style, but typed…

I got a few scrapes and bumps,
and even drew blood on one skinning spot.
But I climbed a lot
for having done
little comparable activity
in the past several months.

And it felt good.
And I felt like I was being
the person I wanted to be.
The person I want to be.
Yes.  The person I want to be.
Me,
myself, and I are good people,
but there’s more to me
to who I want to be.
And she
yes, she
stopped in to smile tonight
to show how I might
could be.
Truly.
Would that she
come sooner
and wait no longer,
but it is I who must go to her.
Let it go, let it go, just let it all go…
Or Beatles-ly
let it be…
then shall I be she
proud and powerful and humble and beautiful
as can be,
being the person I want to be.

 

Post-a-day 2018