Guns, Germs, Steel

This is a lovely time of year. Living in the North woods, I'm finally learning what "mud season" is. At the same time, the weather every day can best be described as "drippy." Things ooze down the sidewalk. The parking lot at work is more like a wrestling pit for swines. Our driveway is a cobbled mess of melty ice chunks and gritty grime in swirly pools of yuck. Oh March. In like a lion, out like a teeming blob of viral gack.

Interestingly enough, I am sick. Still. Or again. Or something. My throat screams at me every time I swallow and my glands are all bulgy and bulbous. This happens every time the seasons change in a weird start-stoppy kind of way. Ed runs screaming from me every time I come near because the last thing he needs right now is my germs. Okay, not true, but his semester is getting stressy and he truly doesn't need to catch whatever this beast is that I have.

The good news is that life is being kind lately, or I should say, I am being kind to myself. I have several interwoven stories from all corners of my life of people, including myself, learning to take charge and decide how to feel and what to think, and really demanding that all energy be good energy. It's a matter of will. More on this later, but if you're into reading and like memoirs, yoga, spirituality, women, travel, the world, happiness, peace or any other good thing, I suggest you read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Erin, I'm looking at you. I am sending you this book for your post-birthday surprise because I think you'll love it. Please to send me your mailing address?

Hooray for the Equinox and longer, longer days from here 'til July. I love this equal night and day stuff. It makes me feel like balancing one-legged with my eyes closed, standing on the equator while contemplating math equations. Or at least like getting out into the world after work rather than curling up inside my warm house and hiding from the dark, cold winter nights. Come on, Spring!

Ides and Other Nonsense

When Shakespeare warned us of these foreboding Ides of March, I'm pretty sure it was today's weather he had in mind. Seriously? Yuck. It's dark as night out there, and the low-hanging fog, dripping dead branches and melty, icy mud puddles don't do much for my energy level or enthusiasm. Doom indeed, William.

In other news, nous sommes alles a Montreal! Forgive me if that grammar is horrendously incorrect, but the point is, we spent last weekend traipsing around the mini City of Lights with our friends, Roma and Stefanie. It was a blast. We were charmed by European-inspired bistros and cafes and took great delight in everyone who approached us first in French, then noticing our apparent confusion, followed up in perfect English with a coy smile as if to say, it's okay! Have a crepe. We don't mind that you're not bilingual. But wouldn't it be great if you were?!

Emphatically, yes.

I tried my best and had fun pronouncing random French words to my Anglophile compatriots. They were duly impressed, even if I did confuse the word for clock with the one for toaster. They'll never know!

We spent Saturday night in a dark and dreamy jazz club on Rue MacKay listening to a New York quintet twist rhythms around melody. I don't listen to much jazz and can't claim to really understand it, but damn if I didn't feel cool sitting there, wearing all black, bobbing my head to sophisticated music in the middle of one of the best cities in North America. Hello, authentics! I am one of you!

On Sunday we walked to Vieux Port and watched street performers weave seamlessly into French and back to English to an international sidewalk crowd. We drank European beer and swore that Canadian french fries, nay! Pommes frites! Are superior to American ones. I'm sure it was just the rosy glow of international travel coloring our experience, but if it made everything just a little bit better, who am I to complain?

We drove home later that night and I proved myself a warrior of the border highways, navigating us back to familiar soil while my copilots squawked in disagreement. We made it in one piece without taking a single wrong turn and the border officials only smiled, and waved us right on through.

Clearly, the weekend was a huge success, so we're following it up this weekend with another urban venture with our new travel friends. This time we're headed to Boston, where they've never been, to traipse around and get lost in more familiar terrain.

Missing

The sixteen-year old son of my colleague went missing over a week ago, and hasn't been heard from since. I can't shake it, can't stop thinking about it, asking about it, talking about it with everyone I see. It's sad and scary and strange and I, like everyone, just want some news, a clue, a homecoming.

James Holley walked from his home on Wednesday of last week, into town, and then vanished. It was presumed he ran away, but his destination and his whereabouts are completely unknown. The town has rallied and our office has done what we can, which amounts to little more than prayers and family meals.

I've been wracking my brain trying to imagine where an angsty teenager might go: a friend's house, the woods, the city. Montreal. Maybe he went to Montreal. I've asked everyone: doesn't he have a cell phone? He must. No kid goes without one these days. Can't they ping him like they did those lost climbers on Mount Hood? Track his calls, monitor his use, find him with satellites. Can't they at least confirm he's alive?

Meanwhile, news reports have shed light on the fact that he requires medication to stay healthy, that he left on Wednesday wearing a green and red Scottish kilt, that he has a deep interest in Scottish culture and plays the bagpipes. The piping community all along the Eastern seaboard is joining together to help the search. They've planned to gather on street corners and play their pipes, and hope that James will hear them, and miraculously, appear. There's speculation about Atlanta, a maternal grandfather who may be his destination. There's fear over hitchhiking, and kidnapping, and cold.

If you know anything, and this is a long shot, but if you know anything, please let someone know. Leave a comment or call the police directly. And wish, and hope, and pray, if you're into that sort of thing.

Trouble

I forgot I even ordered them. It was weeks ago, and I'm sure I was in a blurry hypnosis of excitement at the time. But today, upon arriving at work, I received an e-mail that has changed, truly, the trajectory of my day: "Girl Scout Cookies are in! Stop on by!"

This, from the CFO of my company whose daughter successfully tricked half our staff into buying her delicious treats.

Having traded my ten dollars for Samoas, Tagalongs and Thin Mints (the best three, obvs) I am now faced with the enormous challenge of not eating them all before the day's end. I'm doing okay so far. I've only opened one box and eaten one two cookies, and to be fair, it's nearly 11:30 which is nearly noon which is, let's be honest, lunchtime.

On top of all this, I feel conflicted for buying these cookies at the workplace because, as a Girl Scout myself back in the day, I always resented the kids who merely sent their order forms to work with their parents and came out the other end with prizes and great fame for selling more than anyone. Meanwhile, I pedaled my product door to door in my neighborhood where houses were spaced apart and driveways were long, especially when you're nine and your legs are short. I worked my little tush off trying to sell these overpriced nuggets, and I always thought I'd done okay, until the day of reckoning.

The day would arrive and the troop would come together to finally find out which little Girl Scout had sold the most. Inevitably, it was never me. I was always shocked by the sheer volume sold by such innocent-looking crooks in crooked sashes who made my measly twenty boxes look like child's play. At first, I imagined that they had superior skill or a more charming sales pitch to win over their unsuspecting neighbors. Later, I found out their dirty secret of parents working in big companies where anonymous order forms were simply left near the front desk for people to sign up, and sign away the innocence of the entire process. I was outraged at the unfairness, and clearly, I still am.

While I get over it, though, I'll be chowing down on some seriously tasty cookies.

The Achey Breakies

Hello world, I have the flu! I ache a lot and feel very tired and fell asleep mid-sentence while watching the evening news on the couch with Ed last night. My sinuses are crammed full of weird stuff and sleeping has been a strange adventure of tossing, turning, dreaming, disillusioning, sniffling, suffocating and drooling. Hello world, I am incredibly attractive right now.

I'm at work, because sitting in front of a computer and typing silly words doesn't take all that much energy, surprisingly. The outside world has responded to my illness with nothing but sincere sympathy by triggering the coldest days in New England history at a brisk negative 12. Hello world, I don't want to go outside ever again.

I was supposed to go to the dentist tomorrow but on account of my germiness, had to cancel. You may think I'd be happy about skipping out on one of life's dreaded activities. But no, not me. I scheduled this appointment months ago and was actually looking forward to it. Am I not my father's daughter? I haven't had a proper cleaning in over a year, so I was overdue. Now, they've put me off for another month because they only take one new patient every day and we are so busy and no we don't want your germs and you should have called a half hour ago and OH JUST SHUT UP AND CLEAN MY TEETH ALREADY.

Ahem.

Hello world. If you need me, I'll be flossing like mad and snoozing between afternoon meetings.

Blocked

I've been having trouble finding anything to say here lately, and by lately, I mean for months. I feel blocked, about to blurt out a million things but unable to type a word, or when I do, compelled to delete every letter, every last trace of having said anything at all. My approach is wrong or my tone too dire. I don't want to write about feeling lousy, don't want to bore you with the details and work myself deeper into the hole I've created. The truth is, though, I have been feeling lousy. Uninspired. Misdirected. A little lost. Unsure. Worried. Stuck.

I've heard more than one person say that your mid-20s inevitably feels like shooting fish in a barrel, that no one really knows what they want or where they're going but if you just keep living and trying and thinking, things eventually work themselves into a more acceptable form of reality. But I'm no good at that part, the living and trying and thinking. I'm no good at accepting the fact that I just don't know what I want out of life or what will make me happy. Instead I worry that there's nothing out there for me, that I will never find something that satisfies my heart and my mind and keep me motivated because it's something I really care about.

The long and the short of it is that I don't like my job and I come home every day feeling bored, lazy, and unaccomplished. It's nothing specific but more of a general and overwhelming sense that I am not going anywhere, doing anything or making a difference in my own life or anyone else's. My most profound interactions every day take place via e-mail, and the lack of human connection, true community, collaboration and responsibility drives me a little bit nuts. I'm in the wrong field, but now that I've realized it, I feel more stuck than before.

I've been thinking about school, or teaching, or interpreting, or crew leading, and I imagine that I would be much happier in any of those places. I think about doing those things, but before I can get honestly interested or pursue them with any effort, I spook myself. I start to worry that once I'm there, I still won't be happy, that I won't like those things either and will soon be right back where I am, asking the same questions but with fewer ideas, fewer options to choose from. I'm frustrated with the situation I'm in, but too scared to actually change it. It's self-defeating and somewhat idiotic, but realizing that fact doesn't make it go away.

I get mad at myself and feel ashamed because hello? This is my life. I am supposed to do something with it. I am free to choose a path and hunt down happiness, but instead I'm letting myself flounder in a situation that I don't like. I'm letting fear and uncertainty determine my path rather than just charging ahead in some direction and letting the details and the future work themselves out as they inevitably will.

With me, it seems that before I can make things change I have to think about it for a long, long time. I have to stew on it and write about it and cry over it and stamp my foot at it and get mad and get impatient and really know that if I don't do something soon, the world really may implode and leave me lying in a soggy heap of tears and sweat in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. It's really serious, this whole life business.

If I had to guess, I'd say I'm approaching foot-stamping and should be standing on the brink of my own impending wasteland sometime soon. Please stay tuned.

I LOVERMONT

Tomorrow in Vermont is Town Meeting Day, or is it "Towne" and if not, why not? It's so much better that way. The whole state closes down and I am not even kidding you, the law school and every other school is closed so that people may attend and air their grievances and speak their minds and rock out, democracy-style, all over this big bad liberal state.

Last year at Towne Meeting Day, a few people suggested that maybe the President should be impeached for all his wrong-doings and evil plans, and whatdoyouknow, Mr. Awesome aka Bernie Sanders listened to them and took their idea to Washington. It didn't work I guess, as evidenced by the fact that the President is still busy with all that evil-doing, but it's still cool. People said things, felt things, believed things, and they were heard. They were represented. They weren't shushed. They weren't even looked down upon. I don't even know whether I agree with them, whether I think his evilness should be impeached or whether their case has a leg to stand on. All I know is that when in fourth grade they taught me about representation and American free speech and honest democracy, this is what I thought they meant.

Ten Days

Ten days feels like a long time when I'm away from home on the other side of the country, living a life not at all like my own. Camping was windy and dusty but the desert was good and nice to return to. The people were, as expected, welcoming, familiar, friends.

Ventura and hotel life was fun and fast-paced in that globe-trotter lonesome sort of way. They served jug wine and carrot sticks at 5 o'clock, and I came in from the shore just around then every night. I watched more television than I had in weeks, and I typed notes in bed from days worth of interviewing and getting to know strangers through shared convictions and common ground.

The airplanes were something of a disaster, though I took it to heart and chalked it up to traveling, which is never easy and rarely without inconvenience. I was unsurprised but a bit dismayed at how bent out of shape some people were. A hole in the O'Hare runway slowed or stopped every flight from east coast to west on Thursday. I missed my New Hampshire connection, but there was another three hours later, which turned into six but no bother. By the time we boarded, the other passengers and I were bleary-eyed comrades having shared longer than comfortable in the transitory space of terminal B.

Home brought snow back into my consciousness. I was away long enough, I guess, to forget entirely that winter existed and was in full force in the cold northern parts of the country. I slept from 4am until noon the next day, then snow and rain and wind and slush barred me from the highways until late afternoon. By the time I braved the journey and returned home, Ed was waiting for me by the door in his nice shirt, clean-shaven, smiling so big and holding a bouquet of flowers that he'd been holding there for more than a day. I arrived home one day late.

I was nervous or anxious until I got here. A lot can change in ten days? I had spent more time not thinking of home than thinking of it, I guess, and the night before my flights it hit me and reminded me that sometimes, my brain makes things complicated. When I got here, though, things were nice and my home was my home and my Ed was my Ed and I was me again.

Things look different here after ten days away. Our apartment is nicer, and cozier, and more us than ever. The couch is softer, the kitchen cleaner, the sheets warmer. I look at Ed and immediately see all the reasons I love him, and how happy I am to have returned after a vacation of my own. It's good to get away, but really, I love coming back.