Interim Abroad ≠ Study Abroad

“I’m not going to study abroad. I’m going to do interim abroad.” Many reading this post have said these very words. You know who you are. I have heard you. But BSC interim abroad does not equal study abroad. Here are 7 reasons why:

1. Duration

Interim abroad equals 2 to 4 weeks. Study abroad equals 3 to 9 months. A mere few days cannot equal or even compare to multiple months.

2. Cost

Interims abroad are expensive, very expensive, especially when comparing their costs to the short time actually spent abroad. For example, the South Africa interim costs $5,555 for two weeks abroad; the Italy interim costs $4,750 for three weeks abroad. Excluding tuition, those individual costs exceed the amount of money I spent over an entire semester in England, flying to and from the US, paying rent, buying groceries, and going out. (Information on interim lengths and costs taken from http://www.bsc.edu/academics/exp-con/pdfs/travel-bulletin.pdf.)

3. Freedom

Because interims abroad are short, itineraries are tight, restricting freedom to wandering in a designated area for a few designated hours. When traveling while studying abroad, you make the itinerary, and a part of that is making it up as you go, stepping outside a hostel without timeline or destination; meeting fellow travelers and spending the day together; creating and changing plans on unfettered whim. Interim itineraries get the most out of the trips, but they also eliminate freedom and spontaneity, two core qualities making international travel worthwhile.

4. Chaperones

Interims abroad include chaperones. You are in college. You no longer need chaperones. A part of traveling abroad is maturing. You are not going to do that with someone holding your hand. Furthermore, as a student on an interim trip, you are paying the chaperones’ expenses. Why not use that money and spend it on your own travels?

5. Mishap

Interim itineraries are packed not only to get the most out of the scant time but also to eliminate time for things to go wrong. But things going wrong is an ingrained, even an essential, part of international travel, and it is what makes moments their most memorable. When traveling while studying abroad, things will go wrong, horribly even (I’m talking missing trains not sex trafficking), and most of the time it is your fault. But you learn; you grow; and the grand adventure continues.

6. Why go?

Q: What are you doing on many interims abroad? A: Engaging in tourism at its finest with the entire experience structured, safety-netted, and interpreted for you by travel agents, professors, and tour guides. Swaddled by professors and fellow students, you leave and return within a microcosm of BSC. Movement occurs but does growth? If the objective is tourism or site-specific academia, then mission accomplished. If the objective is to replace studying abroad, then mission horribly failed.

7. Do it.

No interim abroad can compare to, compensate for, or replace studying abroad, because studying abroad requires students not only to go abroad but to create a life there within a foreign university, community, culture, and country for months with no one holding their hands and from there to set out on their own travels. Students, if given the option to interim abroad or to study abroad, then get the most out of your time, your resources, and your education and study abroad. You can do it. You will be amazed at what you can do.

[Image taken from PostSecret]

Grass Clippings 2006-2008 Part 2

A teacup voice

A voice so small it fits in a teacup

A voice so small it barely peers over the rim of a teacup

Sleep and I have always had an off again on again relationship, but I think we finally broke up.

Most of us think that we are going to live forever. Not forever as in an infinite amount of time, but our forever. As though, after we do everything that needs to be done, we will die. But until then, we’ve got time.

I’ll be waiting for you over the Rainbow.

Sucking on lemon drops

And flying with blue birds.

Something as soft as a kiss can break a heart.

Time, what’s your hurry?

Why fly so fast?

Slow down.

Take my hand.

It’s a beautiful world.

I want to affect people how I am affected. I want to make them dream, think, grow, laugh, cry, remember, smile, and fly. I want to take them away and bring them back changed. I want to act, write, direct, and teach theatre. I want to roll in it laughing like a kid in fall leaves.

The ocean is a seductress.

The ocean makes me feel invincible.

If I can’t have you, I can

Live in your laugh

Live in the freckles on your nose

Live in your hug

Live in the arch of your brows

Live in your eyes

Live in the lick of your lips

Live in your voice

Live in your hands

Live in your lashes

Living in you

You living in me, in my mind, in the tingles on my skin.

Do all books want to be read? Are some coy? Do they blush scarlet when opened wide, baring their innermost to a stranger’s hungry eyes? Do they giggle as a finger wanders their spine? Do they get grouchy and annoyed when opened late into the night? Does their vanity get insulted when pens scratch their pages and corners crease for a reader’s remembrance? Do they gag ink when tumbling inside a cramped satchel?

City Lights Bookstore. San Francisco, CA. 2008.    

You're Adopted

You’re 42 years old today, so I thought it was time for you to know. Erm, happy birthday. Well, no beating around the bush. You’re adopted. We don’t even know if today is your birthday. But who can be sure of those things anyway? We could all be lied to and not know any different. As long as it’s consistent. Anyway, you’re adopted, and your mother and I discussed it, and we thought it was time for you to know. You are old enough now, being 42, and you should know where you came from. Well, we don’t really know that either. You see, we didn’t go through any of those fancy adoption agencies or scout out a knocked-up teenager or anything. We found you in a dumpster. I’m sorry to tell you that. I know it’s harsh to hear you were abandoned. I am sorry. But we took you in and raised you as our own, as our very own. You were so small and helpless with those big brown eyes and… Anyway, like I said, as our very own. You can’t say that we ever treated you any different just because you didn’t come out of the same uterus as the other kids. Except for chaining you in the basement. We only did that a few times. And making you sleep on the floor. Our biological kids came first in that respect, and we couldn’t afford another bed. But besides that.

What? What are you…? Are you going to call Child Protection Services? What? After all we’ve…Ungrateful. Go ahead! Tear through that phone book. Rip it to shreds. Rip it! You’ll never find it. You know why? You know why? Because you can't read! We never sent you to school like our other kids, our biological kids. What? Still can’t find it? They wouldn’t care anyway. They wouldn’t care. You know why? Because you’re not a child! You’re 42 years old. Get over it.

Speaking of, if you want to stay living under our roof, it’s time you started acting your age. Doing for yourself. Basic things like bathing and making your own dinner. Is that too much to ask? We’ve been doing for you for six years now. Six years! You’re 42; we’re not asking much. But we are asking for you to help out. You’re cleaning up that mess by the way.

Anyway, here’s your present. Your favorite, or at least the only brand we’ve ever bought but you seem to like it. So, um, here’s your Milk Bone. Happy birthday. No. No, it’s fine about the phone book. Aw, I love you, too. Let’s go pee on the neighbor’s mailbox.

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6 More Things America Can Learn from England

1. Night Life

In England, university students hit the clubs Monday through Thursday and then head to the nearest house party Friday and Saturday when the older, professional crowd that works during the week overtakes the clubs. American students, we really have no idea of what we are missing. Frat Row does not count or compare.

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2. Co-ed Living

Boys and girls live together both in university housing and in off-campus housing. Co-ed living is more realistic and more fun than single-gender living, and despite southern beliefs, it is not uncomfortable nor does it create a hothouse of sexual tension and fury where cream has to be scraped off the walls.

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3. Less Academic Output

In England, I put forth one-fifth of the work I put forth in America at BSC. Class met only once a week, assigned weekly readings, and required only one presentation and one essay at the end of the semester. Despite this reduced course-load, I learned and retained more from most of those classes than I have from many of my American classes at BSC, because I actually had time to learn and to process the material instead of constantly stressing about churning out relentless, unindicative results in the form of quizzes, tests, and the God-forsaken unending stream of papers.

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4. Blind-Friendly Notes

In England, what Americans call dollar bills are called notes, and in England, each note is a different size corresponding to its amount: a twenty pound note is bigger than a ten pound note which is bigger than a five pound note and so on. The indicative sizes make the notes blind-friendly, and blind-friendly makes the world a happier place. Yay.

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5. Pubs

Really? Does this one require an explanation? Okay, okay, here it is: food, drink, community.

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6. Drying Racks

What’s highly unnecessary? Clothes dryers. Why? Evaporation. I did not meet a single English house with a clothes dryer. All clothes were dried on drying racks placed outside during summer or placed over a radiator during winter. Saves electricity; saves money; better for the environment.

My backyard in Birmingham, UK spring 2011

See more 6 Things American can Learn from England

20 Tea Quotations

Make tea not war.

Monty Python, Flying Circus

Never trust a man who, when left alone in a room with a tea cozy, doesn't try it on.

Billy Connolly

The first sip of tea is the always the best... you cringe as it burns the back of your throat, knowing you just had the hottest carpe-diem portion.

Terri Guillemets




When you have nobody you can make a cup of tea for, when nobody needs you, that's when I think life is over.

Audrey Hepburn

There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.

Henry James

Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.

Henry Fielding, "Love in Several Masques"




Tea is drunk to forget the din of the world. T'ien Yiheng

Strange how a teapot can represent at the same time the comforts of solitude and the pleasures of company.

Unknown

Drinking a daily cup of tea will surely starve the apothecary.

Chinese Proverb




There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea.

Bernard-Paul Heroux

Tea to the English is really a picnic indoors.

Alice Walker


Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves - slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.

Thich Nat Hahn


When the news reporter said "Shopkeepers are opening their doors bringing out blankets and cups of tea" I just smiled.  It's like yes.  That's Britain for you.  Tea solves everything.  You're a bit cold?  Tea.  Your boyfriend has just left you?  Tea.  You've just been told you've got cancer?  Tea.  Coordinated terrorist attack on the transport network bringing the city to a grinding halt?  Tea dammit! 

Jslayeruk, as posted on Metaquotes Livejournal, in response to the July 2005 London subway bombings




Tea beckons us to enjoy quality time with friends and loved ones, and especially to rediscover the art of relaxed conversation.

Dorothea Johnson, Tea & Etiquette

Tea… shows comfort in simplicity rather than in the complex and costly.

Kakuzo Okakura, Book of Tea

When you sit in a café, with a lot of music in the background and a lot of projects in your head, you're not really drinking your coffee or your tea. You're drinking your projects, you're drinking your worries. You are not real, and the coffee is not real either. Your coffee can only reveal itself to you as a reality when you go back to your self and produce your true presence, freeing yourself from the past, the future, and from your worries. When you are real, the tea also becomes real and the encounter between you and the tea is real. This is genuine tea drinking.

Thich Nhat Hanh, Anger: Wisdome for Cooling the Flames

I hope next time when we meet, we won't be fighting each other. Instead we will be drinking tea together.

Jackie Chan, Rumble in the Bronx

Tea. Earl Grey. Hot. And whoever this "Earl Grey" fellow is, I'd like to have a word with him.

Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek, The Next Generation

I always fear that creation will expire before teatime.

Sydney Smith

Make a cup of tea, and put a record on.

Elastica, “All Nighter”

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Traveling is Not an Apotheosis

Drying laundry in the back yard
in Birmingham, UK.

Traveling is not an apotheosis. You do not land in another country and transform into a god. You arrive and remain fully human, having to do the same tasks you do at home—wash dishes, laundry, food shop. Your body has the same needs and limitations—sleep, food, shower, warmth, rest. You still contain all your ugly, hindering emotions—frustration, embarrassment, fear, loneliness, anxiety, apathy, exhaustion.

If we did not have this humanness, then traveling would be a lot easier and a hell of a lot cheaper. There would be no need to pay for hostels or food, allowing more money for another museum, site, club, performance, train. You could adventure 24-7, seeing what that city, desert, countryside looks and smells and sounds like at every hour of the day, never missing a sunrise, because you would have no need for sleep. You could walk across continents, never carried by motor or wing, learning the rise and life and bend of the land, because you would not know weariness or pain.

So many times while traveling I wished that I did not need to eat or sleep. I wished my body did not need wash or rest. I wished I never felt afraid, lonely, or frustrated. I wished I knew what 5am and sunrise looked like in every country I visited. But I did need those things. I did feel those emotions, and I didn’t see 5am or sunrise in every country I visited.

Because I am human, and traveling is not an apotheosis.

But when everything is alien, there is comfort in washing a dish, in folding a shirt. These small tasks and routines give us something familiar and tangible to hold onto. They allow us to know that even if we don’t know the person next to us or the language or the food, at least we know how to do these simple tasks, that at least, at its most basic level, we know how to take care of ourselves; and if we can do that, then we’ll be okay. (And sleep, as much as I have loathed you and cheated on you, at least you’re reliable.) If anything, these needs and emotions, as inconvenient and expensive as they may be, ground us, connect us, letting us know that life is very much the same wherever we go.

Eating sauerkraut in Berlin, Germany.

Yo, BSC, I'm Back!

Here I am at BSC as a senior after studying abroad for my junior year. I’ve been back at BSC one week, and the best part has been running into friends who I have not seen for a year, embracing them, looking into their faces, alive and bright, no longer picture or memory.

The rest has been stranger than expected.

BSC has changed. The people have changed. I have changed. BSC is no longer my tailor-made, velvet glove. I took off those gloves, waved good-bye to my country, and left both far behind. From thousands of miles away, my bare, untraveled hands roughened, exposed to the harsh elements of day after day stretching, molding, bashing my comfort zone wider and wider to include not just all my insecurities, fears, and doubts but to contain a faith in myself that I can go anywhere in this world with a confidence greater than those uncertainties.

Now I’m back, and the gloves are too small, too soft; they don’t feel like mine anymore. BSC doesn’t feel like home anymore, and I no longer know how I fit in here.

Before I left, BSC was the be-all, end-all. Now it’s so small. Physically, it’s minuscule—192 acres with a gate circling the campus, broken only by a single entrance and exit. But it goes beyond the material; what happens here is small. The people, relationships, education, dreams, and endeavors are important, but beyond those pursuits, everything else feels so small as to not even take up space. How much of a calamity can anything here be if the world is so big and so full that it does not even know that BSC exists? This perspective is not depressing; it is liberating, freeing me to focus on and to chase the worthwhile, leaving the rest alone.

Even more than small, BSC feels temporary. Freshman and sophomore year, I never wanted to leave college. Why would I? It’s camp with all your friends, interrupted by the occasional pesky essay. Now I wonder what I am still doing here. I am excited about my classes and love being with my friends, but I am ready to head into that unknown but forward direction of onwards.

Most unexpected of all, I feel older. Of course I am a year older, but I feel older than the majority of my peers who are 21, older than I anticipated I would feel at 21. I’m not signing myself into a nursing home, but my 21 years feel very real, not heavy, but undeniably present and full, undeniably lived.

But for now until May, I am at BSC, and though changed, small, and temporary, I can honestly say, I am very happy to be here.

The color is a little weird, but check out this unseasonable, freak weather.

Scarves don't exist in Alabama in September, nor do umbrellas or hot tea.

It’s like I’m back in England on a fair-weather day.

10 Things I am Excited about for 1st Semester Senior Year

1.) Tackling my friends in giant hugs who I have not seen in a year. Friends, wear football pads.

2.) Living, talking, laughing, stressing with those friends. We’re seniors! How the heck did that happen?

3.) Being part of the BSC theatre department again! WHOOO!!! I am forgoing moving in my Bruno suite and just moving into the theatre. We all know that is where we theatre majors live anyway, occasionally venturing into the outside world to, you know, purchase props and paint.

4.) Having that first conversation with someone who I have never met, one of my absolute favorite things in this world.

5.) Walking across campus at 3am and then running into someone and talking with them for an hour when we both have an essay due the next day, which neither of us have half written. Procrastination, I am determined to break-up with you this year.

6.) BSC chapel visits. I know no building more calming.

7.) Being with my family for Thanksgiving this year!

8.) Writing some more “Tea Time” for the Hilltop News, BSC’s newspaper.

9.) My favorite library study carrel. Wait, I shouldn’t be excited about that.

10.) Late-night runs that finish by the pond-in-identity-crisis. Shhhh… It thinks it’s a lake.

Lake/pond, make like Lady Gaga and be who you are, baby!

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I’m back! And you are?

I return to BSC this Sunday after being away a year. Until a few weeks ago, I held a comfortable, almost blasé attitude about returning, picturing myself effortlessly slipping back into the community, school, campus of BSC. Then, at the beginning of August, I started to get nervous, really nervous. I’ve been gone a year. When I return, will anyone notice me? Will anyone care that I’m back or that I ever left? Will people even remember me? As a different person in an old place, will I fit back in? While I’ve been away, will everyone have bonded so tightly, closing the little space I once occupied, leaving no room for me? Are we not meant to return to the places we’ve left? But I was always meant to return. I left, every day knowing I would return.

Then, in blazing mid-August, I meet up with a friend from BSC, and it was so easy to talk, so easy to fall back into the give and take and natural pause of conversation, like that year had folded into itself, creating a nice storybook to share instead of an immense gap to yell across, and I wasn’t nervous anymore. Once again, I knew what had known before I left-- it was the same resolve that had given me the confidence to leave— that some things even the Atlantic cannot erode, that the people who I would care about leaving for a year will care about me returning from that year, that neither of us would stop caring about the other. Those are the people who I am returning to.

As far as being a different person after a year away, if I had stayed at BSC, I would still be a different person than who I was August 2010, because to go a year without changing is to go a year without living. In turn, I am expecting everyone else to have changed as well. As I wrote nearly a year ago on this same blog, “They will change. I will change. Life for both of us will continue. And that is okay. It diminishes nothing.”

But even after this year, after this grand adventure, after this trip to England around the sun and back to the States, I am still very much the same girl who left only now, hopefully, a little wiser with clearer eyes and a few good stories gathered along the way.

P.S. The woah-weird thing about studying abroad for my junior year and returning for my senior year is that the two classes above me that had always been a part of my BSC experience will both be gone, replaced by two classes of freshmen and sophomores that I do not even know the existence of. I’m now going to walk around campus knowing about five people.

P.S.S. Photo Booth is narcissistic.

USA: The Great Memory Foam Mattress

Before I left for England, I had never been outside the US. I had never owned a passport and was content to live the rest of my days and its travels cradled in the cozy boarders of Manifest Destiny.

But studying abroad for a year and traveling to various countries stretched my comfort zone to the point that being the US is uncomfortable; even England would now be uncomfortable. It is like lying wide-awake for hours on a memory foam mattress. Yes, the mattress is the single most comfortable object my body has ever drooled upon, but after an hour, I have never been more uncomfortable in my life. And if I do not get out of bed, then the mattress will soon catch fire from the friction of my restlessness, burning me in the combustion.

The US is too easy. There’s no challenge. I’m stuck, static, not growing. Of course, there are the trials of every day life. Those exist no matter where you go— the stress of the day-to-day, family, school, work, that haunting, incessant feeling of, Am I truly living? Even so, it’s too easy. Don't get me wrong; I do not want my life to suddenly crash into doomsday and havoc to come raining down. I want the challenge of a new country, a new culture, a new mindset, a new landscape. There is so much world out there, and I want to go there.

I am tired of seeing, hearing, reading of this world through travel blogs, magazines, newspapers, radio, films, and the worst, damn calendar pictures. I don’t want to be told or shown. I want to go there myself, take the pictures myself, write the articles myself, create my own damn calendar.

I stare at maps like a mother stares at her newborn baby, seeing nothing but hopes and dreams and possibilities through the eyes of purest wonder. I want to go there.

And there.

And there.

And there!

I want to know this world for all that it contains.

I want these maps to be my autobiography.

I want to grab a backpack and a plane ticket and GO!

If I was a superhero, I'd wear a map as my cap.

Studying Abroad = Missing Out?

I fiercely, lovingly, passionately encourage everyone to study abroad, but studying abroad is not for everyone. It is a decision that requires you to honestly ask yourself, “What do I want from my college experience?” For some people, what they want is four years at the same school with the same people. That is the choice most people make, and they have an incredible four years. Other people chose to take a year or a semester and study abroad. Whichever option you chose, trade-offs exist; you have to decide which trade-offs are worth it.

The trade-off people say they are most afraid to risk by studying abroad is “missing out” on their family, friends, and campus. Yes, you will miss out. There is no nice way to say it and no reason to sugarcoat it. You will not be here; life will go on without you and things will happen which you will not be a part of. You have to decide if you are willing to miss out on those events and those people in order to live other events with other people. And if you are truly living, then are you really missing out?

Please understand that studying abroad does not mean that you love your family, friends, or school less. You will return to those people and to those places, and do not think for a moment that you will be disconnected from them. Through skype, facebook, email, blogging, twitter, cell phones, and snail mail, you can virtually never leave. But you did not travel to stay in the same place. Stay in contact and foster those relationships from home, but remember to live where you are and to build relationships with the people surrounding you.

In the end, you might return a better person with more to contribute to your family, friends, and school, and through going away, you are now better able to love, appreciate, and help those people and those places you were so afraid to leave. For me, that was and continues to be the case.

Some trade-offs to consider:

Foster the friendships you already have. Make new friends.

Stay physically close to family. Skype with family.

Take that class you really want to take while you are at BSC. Take a class not offered at BSC.

Rise through the ranks of that club or organization at BSC. Remain in a lower position in that club or organization at BSC and join a new one abroad.

Remain in one country and one culture. Live in a different country and experience a different culture.

Stay at the same school. Experience a different school and a different educational system.

Stay on and near campus. Travel.

Back in the USA. Very messy hair and all.

Sunflowers

To Sarah, who told me, walking through sunflowers, “Always keep poetry in your life.”

Heaven, to me, is a field of endless Sunflowers.

Summer 2010 on the outskirts of Birmingham, Alabama under blazing sun, burnishing blue sky white, humidity sat fat on the earth, and I harvested sunflowers.

Walking between rows of green and gold, stalks heavy in my arms, biceps and shoulders burning, bees fat and pollen-plump droned past my face, in my ear, through reaching fingers, nail beds black, while sweat—soup of salt, dirt, and sunscreen— rolled thick down neck and chest, small of back and back of knee, unable to evaporate.

And all around me Sunflowers. Tall, bold, golden, beautiful, beautiful sunflowers.

I looked up into faces braver, bolder, more daring, than my own, into faces of a faith I have yet to see in a human being, faces following the sun, arching and leaning towards the light, always. I have searched for conviction, soul beating in hunger for years, and if I ever found what they see looking towards the sky, then I would hold to it tighter than to my final breath.

I reach up and cup a sunflower’s face in my hands, a face larger than my own, pulling it towards me, breathing deeply. And smack in the middle, where brown swirls to dew, I kiss it. Have you ever done that? Have you ever kissed the face of a sunflower?

Further down the row, in the center of a flower, sits a bee— still—, and I know without touching it that its body is dry, legs stiff, wings crisp, for bees, vibrant creatures, are never still. As I gently pluck the brittle body from the flower, I decide that if I could choose my final resting place, then I too would choose the face of a sunflower, and there encounter the world as I encounter death.

Then having encountered that grand adventure, the ones I leave behind, after harvesting my organs like I harvested these flowers, will take my body as I take this bee’s, and bury it where sunflowers will grow. Grow from my shoulders, my eye sockets, my womb, from between my ribs, curling roots between fingers, holding my hand until it too is root and stem and leaf and pollen and petal. Using my body to grow Bright. Bold. Beautiful. The way I will remember you.

But before I lay my body to yours, before I follow that bee, teach me to stand tall in this world. Teach me to stand bold and bright and golden beautiful. Teach me to live daringly, standing my ground and turning towards the light, always.

Then, knowing how to rise, teach me how to set.

To give myself completely.

And to walk between rows of green and gold in a field of endless Sunflowers.

How to Survive Commuting in 5 Steps

Commuting asphyxiates the soul with every second lost, trapped inside a plastic and metal machine on wheels that can never get there fast enough. Never do it. NEVER! But if you are fated for Satan's iron maiden...

5-Step Survival Guide to Commuting:

1. If you too commute, then God looked down upon you, and said, “I hate you,” so pray for your soul and that the hell does not extend into infinity after you get so red-blind from sitting in stand-still traffic that you gnaw off your own arm and bleed to death.

2. Misery loves company, so find another person God hates and endure the misery together. Make sure the person is entertaining or at least somewhat amusing. You are already in hell; don’t kindle your own inferno with someone boring, or worse, annoying. Ew.

3. NPR. No explanation necessary.

4. Audio books. I recommend Jim Dale's brilliant reading of the Harry Potter series for months’ worth of magical adventure. Always choose something plot-driven. Forget symbolism and theme. You want a story to carry you away from your suffering, not leave you brooding in it.

5. Airborne Toxic Event. Buy all songs. Listen to all songs. Experience your life changing. Wear helmet. Because they are about to break the %&*# out.

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Graduation and then...Whiteness

On May 19, 2012, I will graduate college, and the same image keeps playing before my eyes.

I am walking through a forest. Below me is a path of laid brick, direction straight, unwavering. Around me are trees as tall and daring as the sky, bark brown, leaves cool green. There are no footprints ahead. This path is mine. I have walked it my entire life, and never has it forked, always leading me forward, unequivocally on: preschool to elementary school to middle school to high school to college to…

…and here is where the laid brick ends, fragmenting into a million directions of a million colors.

A prism, and from it, my life. Streaming onwards, blindingly, merging into Whiteness.

Whiteness so white it glows like the rim of a cloud in June.

Whiteness without definition, without shape or shadow or past.

Whiteness without depth, without stillness.

Whiteness without sky or forest.

Whiteness without path.

It ends here, in every direction it ends, a great sheet unfurled from the sky, a sail without wind.

Shel Silverstein, I have found where the sidewalk ends and it is May 19, 2012—the day where the path laid for me by my parents runs out of brick and mortar, solid no more. 

Only Whiteness.

The Whiteness is terrifying. I want to run from it. Turn around and run back to the beginning. Run back to me curled inside my mother’s womb. Return to the place before thought, before decision, before past and future and consequence. Return to the place of being and warmth and closeness. Return to the place where I was carried and I was happy wherever that path lead.

But I can’t run back. I can’t turn around. Because I can’t stop staring at the Whiteness. The colors mesmerize me, playing on my face, ohhing my mouth, searching my eyes; my eyes searching it. I reach a hand into the Whiteness. It disappears. Lost. Atoms bursting into a million possibilities.

The Whiteness is my canvas to Jackson Pollock. It is my book’s first blank page. It is my sail to fill, to tear, to whether, to hoist, to wrap myself in. It is a shot of adrenaline, fluid, pure, addicting. It is the light pouring from the doors of my life thrown wide, radiating from every dream, every wish, every hope, every opportunity carefully placed on the other side.

After May 19, 2012, I have no idea what is going to happen. I have no idea where I am going to go. I only know that I am the only thing standing in my way and that despite this fear stopping my lungs and this freedom quickening my blood on its path from heart to lung to limb, urging me to go! go! go! GO!, I know that wherever I go, it is going to be one hell of an adventure.

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Homesickness

(While in England)

Homesickness hits without warning and without apology, walking across campus, waking up, chopping vegetables, turning a page, then BAM! It hits you in the place it knows will hurt the most, and in those moments, I am glad my heart was built inside a ribbed cage, packed in muscle, bound in tendon and ligament, stretched with skin. Otherwise, it would have burst out long ago. A small but fierce heart, all muscle and moxie, flopping across England and then cannonballing into the Atlantic to flail its way home to Tennessee. It wouldn’t have gotten halfway there before being splattered by a train or chomped by shark. Meanwhile, all that would be left of me would be a corpse, chest gaping, ribs jutting, veins and arteries sprouting— you know, your everyday Aztec sacrifice reproduction.

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Grass Clippings 2006-2008 Part 1

I sang a song

unknotted the tangles

glued on wings

and sent it to you

Love me fondly.

No.

Love me with passion!

Why can’t love be like a song?

Why can’t life be like a musical?

I love you when you are away. You cannot hurt me. You cannot laugh at me. You cannot embarrass me. You are perfect when you are away.

  

Love will come:

swept off its feet

falling up to Heaven

hot pink lipstick kisses on its cheek

Give me music. Music that holds me close like a blanket. I don’t need words. I need to be held.

Find me a car

with mirrors painted black

and top down

letting rain pour in

I see you and I create a story. Come sit by me, and tell me your tales unless they be less heroic than mine.

Excellence is the current average. So, unless you are stressed to the point of suicide and have no time for the ones you love, you are screwed in this world. Or are you just happy?

I come in during the night and give you a kiss. A soft flutter of lingering angel wing on your forehead. I seal my love for you with this kiss. But as day breaks, the seal too breaks, and my heart breaks. Because I cannot show you how much I love you in the light. I cannot hold you close and cover your little face and hands with kisses. I cannot hug you or brush away your hair. Only after night sings you to sleep.

The worst feeling is not being needed.

The second worse feeling is trying so hard and not being good enough.

A good book is printed to be written in. Torn binder, dog-eared pages, broken spine, underlining, highlighting, and notes in the margin are all signs of a good book. It shows that the book is loved.

  

Some people get to the point were they are so tired from simply living day to day that having to think for themselves just becomes another thing on the To-Do-List.

Time is in too big of a hurry to care if it passes you by.

May 2008
I. Am. Simba.

10 Things I Miss from England that America Should Adopt

1. People

GET OVER HERE NOW! I MISS YOU!

2. Tea Time

Mmmmmmmmmmm……Oh, how I miss, thee, my love.

3. Trains

I drive an hour to and an hour from work every day. Why am I not on a train doing something useful with my life like sleeping, reading, or writing instead of pumping fumes into the atmosphere and stomping on the brake, wanting to throw a baseball into traffic’s face?

4. Kisses

England: Meet someone = Kiss on cheek. Say good-bye to someone = Kiss on cheek.

America: Meet someone = Handshake or Curt Nod. Say good-bye to someone = Handshake or Curt Nod.

Beloved country of mine, show me some love!

5. Drinking age

I hardly drink, and when I do I rarely drink a full serving, but America, get off your neutered Puritan horse and lower the drinking age to 18. If we can vote for our Commander in Chief and then raise a loaded weapon in his/her service, we should be allowed to raise a glass. Cheers.

6. English Accent

America, can we sound any blander? Let’s add a little music to our yapping.

7. Smaller Cars

While abroad, I did not see a single SUV, and the only vans and trucks seen were service vehicles. America, with 2.3 children per household and gas prices rising faster than a teenager’s sex drive, why do families of 4 own vehicles with 9 seats, and why must all American 5-seat vehicles (i.e. cars and SUVs) be 3 times larger than English 5-seat vehicles?

P.S. How much “sport” is in SUV if the US could pay back its debt by turning its obese into gold?

P.S.S. Am I fully aware that I drive a purple minivan? Yes.

8. University Classes Beginning in Early October

I am so not ready to go back to class September 1. Administrators, how about another month, eh?

9. Carrots

Carrots are one of my taste buds favorite visitors, and for some reason, English carrots are more fragrantly flavorful than American carrots. Better soil, perhaps?

10. Eggs

English eggs contain more flavor and a better texture than any American egg I have ever cracked. One American egg is not very filling and is improved upon significantly with salt and pepper. One English egg satisfies for an entire morning and to add salt and pepper would be a waste of good spice.

Gut-Nagging

Since this summer is my last summer cradled in the security of college before the bitch-slap reality of post-graduation, I knew that if I was serious about pursuing theatre, then this summer I needed work in a theatre, gaining experience and building contacts. So this spring, I combed the internet for theatre jobs and internships, and in the process, developed this crazy, gut-nagging sense that I should spend this summer working with kids.

Here is the thing: I never, never, never wanted or envisioned myself working with kids. I am passionate about kids learning the intertwined craft and life-skills of theatre while having a hell-a fun, but I did not want to be the one to teach them those things. I saw kids how I saw people’s pets: They are fine and good and all that, but I don’t want to deal with them. They are annoying; they make too much noise; and they are grimy to the touch. I respect them; I will not hurt them. (Hell, I’m a vegetarian.) But keep them to yourself and away from me; because I don’t connect with them, and they don’t connect with me.

But for some reason, I followed that crazy, gut-nagging sense and landed an internship with the Nashville Children’s Theatre (NCT).

When I told friends what I was doing this summer, they responded with versions of, “Wow that’s so cool. You’re going to have such a fun time. Kids are great.” Each time, I smiled weakly, mumbling, “Uh-huh,” and quickly changed the subject, all the while thinking, “WTF am I doing?!?!?!?!”

Now, in my sixth week of summer camp at NCT, I never want to not work with kids again. I love my job. I love it. I now know nothing more fun or rewarding in this world than creating theatre with kids. And I can connect with them, and they can connect with me. I just had to allow myself to open up to them: open to their affection, to their silliness, to their playfulness, to their wonder, to their humanity, to the realization that, though small, they are complete, rapidly growing human beings just trying to live their best life moment to moment, day to day, same as me.

Working with kids is making me a better person—more patient, more compassionate, more caring, more understanding, more fun, more aware. I'm not talking leaps and bounds here; I'm talking that I'm a little better of a person than who I was before I began working with these kids.

Box Office of NCT

Why Theatre Education?

Spring of 2010 I heard Pulitzer Prize winning author David K. Shipler speak on the multifold causes of poverty in America. Two points he made are as follows:

1.) Primary school children in low-income areas will respond to the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” with professions like astronaut, doctor, and teacher. Most high school students in the same area will respond to that question with jobs that do not require a college degree and sometimes do not require a high school diploma.

2.) Many adults in employment-training programs are unable to participate in mock interviews or mock presentations, because they stare at the floor in silence unable to speak.

These two points grasp a wide handful of the reasons why I want to work in theatre education, a craft which teaches confidence, presence, communication skills, collaborative skills, people skills, analytical skills, creativity, imagination, problem solving, and an appreciation for the craft itself.

I am fascinated by the questions: How far does theatre translate? How far do these skills of the page, of the stage, of behind-the-scenes go?

How far translates being able…

to imagine?

to create a work of art with dozens of people from a spectrum of skill sets and communication methods?

to transform ink into empathy into action into giving a damn?

to stand in front of people and speak, feet solid, hands and breath steady, knowing that what you say is worth listening to?

to mess up, horribly even, in front of a crowd, pick yourself up, and continue?

I believe theatre translates far enough to allow many of those students Shipler interviewed to continue to answer astronaut, doctor, and teacher and maybe even actor, director, stage manager, or designer. I believe theatre goes far enough to allow many of those adults Shipler observed to look their audience in the eyes and speak with heads high.

I believe theatre goes far enough to give communities the tools to build a better future by meeting individuals where they are today.

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NCT Week 1

Week 1: May 31-June 4 (Because of Memorial Day, the week is only 4 days instead of the usual 5.)

Age Group of Class: 3^rd-5^th Graders. 7-10 year olds.

Tuesday May 31 Day 1:

This summer I am interning with the Nashville Children’s Theatre (NCT), helping to teach weeklong drama day camps to 5-18 year olds. Today is the first day. God, give me strength. They are going to eat me alive.

Kids are not like other tiny terrifying creatures—snakes, spiders, baby sharks; they are not more afraid of you than you are of them. In fact, kids smell fear, and the more fear they smell, the more powerful they become. It is like Magneto with metal; teachers’ fear is kids’ material for world domination. I know because I have been in school since I was 5 years old, and I have witnessed teacher after substitute after coach being overtaken by a classroom of small bodies. Images of these teachers' final days bit my nails to the quick as I wait by the glass doors of the Theatre on the first day of Drama Camp, heart racing, intestines twisting, waiting for the parents to walk through the fragile barrier and release their offspring onto me.

I have worked with kids before—swim lessons, babysitting, little sister—but I have never co-led a classroom before, and certainly not a classroom in theatre, a craft that brings out the best (i.e. empathy, creativity) and the worst (i.e. egotism, manipulation) in people. Furthermore, I am working with 3^rd-5^th graders this week, 7-10 year olds, the age children run, crazy-legged and unaware, out of the rye field.  I am writing my obituary.

Wednesday June 1:

Surprise! I survived the first day. Someone telling a story about how she almost died is just one long spoiler. Let me guess: in the end you survive. Thanks for ruining the story by getting up to tell it.

I am working after-care this week, and NCT has a no-lap-sitting policy, which is easy to understand because you have one lap and many kids. But it's so hard to practice, especially when you’re sitting on the floor and the little girl is four and she climbs into your lap and you have to pick her up, setting her beside you, saying, “You can sit next to me, but you can’t sit on my lap.” And she looks up at you with wide brown eyes, not understanding. So again, she stands up and tries to sit in your lap, and again you have to pick her up, setting her down, saying, “You can sit next to me, but you can’t sit on my lap,” when all you want to do is to wrap your arms around her and cradle her in your lap, chin resting on top of her braided head; because she is four and even though she may not know much about the dangers of this world, she does know about some of its comforts, and one of those comforts is the warm nest of a lap.

Thursday June 2:

I am not that ra-ra, fun, kid person. I connect best with people older than me, and throughout my life, people have assumed my age older than its years. So if interacting with adults is my comfort zone, then working with children is me entering the jungle, spear and war paint left behind. And always before entering that jungle, I am afraid the kids won’t like me. I won’t be fun enough. I won’t be able to connect with them or to communicate with them on their emotional, mental level, knowing that that failure is my failure. Because for one year of my life, I was 7 years old, then 8 years old, then 9, then 10. But those kids have never been 21 years old. So if I cannot connect or communicate with them, then that is my failure for not remembering what I once lived.

Despite me not being that ra-ra, fun, kid person, I do like kids, and for some reason which I cannot understand, they like me, too. Exhibit A: Today the hugging began— those spontaneous bursts of affection when a kid comes up and hugs me without any known reason. It is heartwarming and confusing.

Friday June 3:

I HATE traffic. I want to throw a baseball into its face.

Today the kids performed the play they have been preparing all week, Anansi and the Five Yam Hills. Very proud of them.

Official NCT Name Badge