A change of scenery will do us good.

I started this blog just over two years ago – about the time I began looking for something I would never find here.  In this blog or in this place.  Of course, it wasn’t until now that I realized I would never find it here.  In this blog or in this place.

That’s not to say that the looking was in vain.  In this blog or in this place.  It’s not that I haven’t found a lot in the years I’ve looked, in the words I’ve typed, and in the things I’ve seen.  I’ve stumbled on many nuggets of truth, some pretty prose, and the grand finale all-important epic realization of what I am not.

I am not Albion.  And since sophomore year, I haven’t been.

and that is what I owe Albion for – I couldn’t have done it without you, dear Albion.  I gave a tour the other day and told a family I came here because I fit – because I looked around and felt like the people were like me.   When I came here, bright-eyed, mild, and fresh from a relationship I was sure was going to define the rest of my life, I did fit.  And had I gone anywhere else – anywhere else that burns with the kind of fire (and frankly, insanity) I now find in myself, I would have stayed that girl I was.  Or thought I was.  The girl I was when I could swallow down the parts of myself that make me burn with drive and intensity.  The parts that make me aggressive, feisty, and brutally honest.  The parts that make me as many enemies and friends.  The parts of me that are just as much a part of me as the pearls and the brownies.

In honor of this transition – this new phase of life and this change of scenery – I have created a new blog that fits better the woman I have become.  Or rather, as they say about Kappa Delta, the woman I have always been.

You’ll find it – and me – here now.  And assuming you like the woman I’ve always been, you should stop by sometime.   If you don’t, that’s alright too – thanks for what you gave me while we traveled this road together, and I wish you all the best.

Well, I guess that’s it; let’s get on with it.  We are alive, so let us go about our business.

http://littlegirllearningtofly.wordpress.com/

Love.Rachel

Every new Beginning comes from some other Beginning’s End

Last January, after a bittersweet Christmas season, I did what every self-respecting “NFJ” (the I/E conflict rages on, but is unimportant in this instance) would do – I tried to create an umbrella of emotion and proper nouns under which to include all the experiences I’d had in the last year.  I struggled, grabbing and missing and stretching and squeezing until finally I found something – Love.  I decided 2007 was the year of love.  I acknowledged its many forms – some quietly beautiful, others quietly malignant, and still others aflame with passion.

Tis the season again.  The season to jump through introspective hoops, looking for something that unifies the experiences of the last 12 months.  This year, I settled on the theme of Endings.

Sounds kind of like a cop out, doesn’t it.  Hardly a proper noun until I capitalized it, and seemingly obvious as the calendar year draws to a close.

48 hours.  “What changed in 48 hours?”  he asked me in the dark wee hours of the morning.  2 days. 2 years. It wasn’t until last night that I could answer.

In 2007, we were in the thick of it.  Relationships began, strengthened, and started to fall apart.  I embarked on a period of travel – 8 months abroad and some awkward minutes inbetween.   The sophomore slump came on strong but fooled all of us when it continued into the first semester of senior year.    2007 was saturated, so full of life changing experiences that they spilled over to the first few months of 2008.   But by February, things began to unwind.

Daughter of a funeral-home family, I can’t help but notice empirically the numbers of deaths I’ve seen firsthand this year.  Grandma Buse.  Dylan.  Doris. Greg.  Two of a close friend’s grandparents.  Evie.  Young and old, merciful and unexpected, the end of their years drew a close not only to their own stories but pieces of ours.  I watched them begin in February and continue on throughout the year up to the bitter end.

Relationships ended.  Some were intentionally destroyed with the lucky ones being rebuilt, brick by brick.  Others have simply faded into the miles of inevitable truth that separates those involved.  We’ve all realized what we need, and what we don’t.  We adjusted accordingly.

The days of wine and roses ended.  America is in a recession (to put it mildly) and the days when Detroit automakers took bonuses and good benefits home to their middle class families are fading fast.

And as much as I hate to say it, College is ending.  This place that we know, that we know how to live in, that we know how to thrive in, this place that we call our home will not be ours for much longer.

But our depression is ending.  The economy may be reeling, but we are not. anymore.  Each of us letting go of our demons. Slowly. Carefully. Sometimes Painfully, sometimes Gracefully.  Each of us is an entirely different person than we were, and we are burring the lost souls we were in the soil of the past, fertilizing the parts of ourselves that now grow stronger by the day.

Tonight’s the night the world begins again.  A Christmas song of sorts that sounds a lot like all the other songs by that artist which sound a lot like a lot of other artists.  It played (blared) in the airport at 4:30 in the morning almost two years ago, and it came on the the radio last night.  I laughed out loud, and realized it was true.  This year has brought the end for many things.  Beginnings that ended here, with champagne, tears, and the soft glow of candles.  And new beginnings are springing up from where the others left off.

This New Year’s Eve, let’s toast to endings.  And Beginnings.

“So take these words, and sing out loud.  Cuz everyone is forgiven now.  Cuz tonight’s the night the world begins again.”

yours.Rachel

thoughts on things above, and elsewhere

On Blue Skies: She was escaping to another prison and I was sitting in my same golden-walled cell. We were sharing a moment across an ocean while she shared the latest musical discovery of hers with me.

Amos Lee, southern sugar dripping from his lips, serenaded us:    “My soul’s as open as the sky, and oftentimes as blue.”

The poetry of the line is beautiful, but it is my present location which makes it especially poignant to me. As anyone who has visited Rome in the spring (or my facebook photos section) can attest to, the skies here are as blue as you could imagine. On days when the sun is out, beautiful shades of everything between turquoise and sapphire paint the sky in such a way that you can not help but wonder if you tripped and fell into one of the postcards from the street-side shops.

As the warm spring creeps steadily in, I find myself spending more and more time beneath this great blue dome – laying on my back watching cotton-ball clouds blow or walking down the streets observing the steeples of churches thrusting their crosses high into the magnificent heavens above. I am continually struck by the never ending expanse above my head, and I marvel both at its magnitude and color as I find myself swimming in a sea of soul.

Caught between the warm rays of the sun on my cheeks and the cool breeze, my red hair blows into my eyes, and I brush it away to see the blue. For the time being I’ll tuck the red neatly away, saving it for the days when it will once again regain its rightful place.

On Sunsets: Since I arrived in Rome, the desktop background on my computer has been the same picture. Taken by a friend one early Manhattan morning, the silhouette of a tree stands against a purple sky ushering in a yello morning over sleepy Harlem. The tree is not particularly special – not the gnarled and knotted type that is usually photographed; simple and young it stands unpretentiously watching the beginning of a new day, solitary but for a few fingers of a neighboring tree reaching into the frame. <It replaced a photo of my sisters around a dinner table, ringing in the new year (in so many ways) in our holiday finest> An ideal background, this pictures carries enough emotions and memories to bring a smile to my lips, but is does not stare directly back at me with any of the piercing eyes and smiles I miss so dearly.

The matter of sunrises here in Rome is that there are none. Nor are their sunsets. The heavens are bright well into the evening, but when the sun does finally decide to rest her head, she leaves quickly – unannounced by any chorus of color. When she returns, she merely climbs quietly to her place in the blue heavens.

I find myself thinking something I never though I would say; I miss the in-between. The glorious entry of a new day, ringing out its fanfare of possibilities in warm hues. And the regal exit, creeping colors waving goodbye as they look back over their shoulder. There we stand, solitary as that tree in Morningside park, maybe with a few fingers reaching towards our own. I long to watching the celestial tides come and go, holding our breath as we prepare for what is yet to be.

On rain: Earlier this morning I sat in my dining room, fingers tapping on the vinyl tablecloth with brightly colored lemons. As my mind wandered from ancient Roman sarcophagi, my gaze wandered to the window. The song – Amos Lee again – ended and left something that should have been silence but instead pitter-pattered on the roof. I walked to the window, realizing it was raining, but as I looked closer I noticed the heavy raindrops only seemed to fall close to my window; not far off the skies were blue and cotton-cloud filled as ever. I craned my head out and watched, ignoring the inevitable hair-frizz and few black tears, to see that a large gray cloud had settled over my apartment building, leaving the rest of the turquoise expanse untouched.

I laughed out loud, and as I lingered in the window frame letting the rain-water stream down my face, I contemplated what I would look like as a cartoon character. Finally, one of my housemates came out, and as she folded her underwear and socks I could feel her furrowing her brow at me. I remarked on the one rain cloud above our building and she laughed: “That seems to be the way things have been going around here.”

I dried off my face, pulled my hair back, and went about my day. Rain gave way to sun, which stepped back for brief showers and then showed her face again. The rain and the sun dance together, weaving in an out, giving way but never sharing. The way a lot of things have been going around here. And we here in Rome are caught always between the summer sun and the wintery watery chill, wondering at what moment one will leave – as quickly as the night and day – and be replaced by the other.

yours.Rachel

Mars, and Venus

boys will be boys. and girls will be girls.

yes, indeed we will.

We will sit on the couch cuddled up, playing each other our favorite songs in the moment. We’ll speculate about Black Bears and laugh about ridiculous futures, all the while sharing our stories and chuckling knowingly when we can tell exactly what the other is going to say. We’ll eat red velvet cupcakes and Thai dinners, finish bottles of wine, and hide our tears when we say goodbye.

We will lay in the grass in the shade of huge palm trees (in Rome? yes ma’am) eating sandwiches the size of our faces (collectively). We’ll say we won’t eat them all, out of girlish necessity, and then we will devour them completely. We’ll ponder the mysteries of love – pontificating about stories we know so well, and falling silent when we reach the ones that are completely beyond our grasp. We’ll speculate that all of you, the ones with cooties, must be friends secretly. And it must have been on some acid trip together somewhere in the inbetween of New York state that you decided the courses of your lives and that getting a tattoo that wraps branches and words all the way down your arm is a good idea.

We’ll make breakfast for dinner at 10pm. Stuffing ourselves with chocolate chip pancakes, sausage, eggs, strawberries and mimosas, and playing the catch up game.

We’ll chat online – even though its not the same – and dream of the days when we will all sit around one big table once again.

We will spend our days apart, taking a field trip through Rivena or our own minds, and then we will reconvene over Chocolate covered strawberries, wine, and chick flicks. We’ll sleep over, and maybe even paint our nails or flip through bridal magazines and remark on how shocked we are that I know so many people getting married.

Then we’ll get up the next day and work. Work on our papers, on our projects, on our careers, on our people. Work ourselves into the ground until we can not muster one more ounce of mental energy. At which point we’ll meet again; if I had to guess, I’d say for enormous salads and water, finishing off with coffee. (penance for the weekend)

Yes, we will be girls. Laughing, loving, listening, working, fearing the future, crying, comforting, analyzing, advising, drinking, dieting, encouraging, un-dieting, laughing again, and trying to wade through the deep waters of our 20-somethings.

I love my girls.

“We barely have time to react in this world, let alone rehearse, and I don’t think that I’m better than you but I don’t think that I’m worse. Women learn to be women, and men learn to be men, and I don’t blame it all on you, but I don’t want to be you.” -Ani Difranco

yours.Rachel

spring has sprung

This winter in Italy has been the coldest in years. Even the Italians were complaining – loudly and with flailing gestures – about the vicious chill in the air. It was a tease too, because the sun would come out and warm the stone just enough to encourage the old ladies to put away their fur coats for the season (that’s the thing here, along with gloves and hats…every woman over 60 looks like the best dressed-1950s woman you’ve ever seen), but by the evening it was chilly again. However, in the past week the weather has been warming, and even on the gloomy days in the city a person feels less like there’s nothing to be done but sit in the apartment on Facebook and AIM. *speaking abstractly of course* The icy chill of winter seems to be warded off for the next several months, and people are beginning to congregate in piazzas to eat gelato or simply to share the sunshine.

In honor of spring’s tradition and in denial of miditerms, I devoted myself to a classic pastime – spring cleaning. Our apartment was…ahhhem...less than clean when we moved in, so this task in its entirety amounted to several springs worth of cleaning. I began in the heart of it all – my bedroom. It’s been quite a while since I’ve had the time to clean my room (or, frankly, the emotional independence to be able to close the door on the world for long enough to do it), and it was beginning to reflect the sort of “disaster hidden underneath the bed” state I often entertain but dislike.

I actually began the process Friday night but only got as far as to remove everything from all flat (and hidden) surfaces, piling all my things in a mountain in the center of the room. (Fortunately my roommate was away in Amsterdam – not spring cleaning, I expect – for the weekend.) I awoke Saturday morning and began to tackle Mount Everest to the sounds of the newest yelloBeat and the Garden State soundtrack. Ignoring the fact that it was entirely too early to be drinking, I poured myself a glass of the fabulous Alsace white I was drinking the previous evening and went about my business – it was fabulous. Cleaning has always been a cathartic endeavor for me when I set out to do it, and I was happy to have found anew my ability to be alone with myself and the Shins (and their other musical companions). Within a few hours, I found myself lying on a freshly made bed, contentedly reflecting on the beauty of the newest musical additions to my life and the old favorite that defined me and others back when we were spiritual virgins and listening to blue-eyes screwing his latest conquest in the shower down the hall. We’ve come a long way from then…

there it was. It had happened – the sun had gone and murdered the snow – and the stargazer lilies were beginning to bloom. I suppose it’s all just a part of the seasons – this “W” shaped chart of our emotions courtesy of the AC Off Campus Study department. As long as I can get through midterms (credit/no-credit. Down, Overachiever… good girl), I’m looking forward to Barcelona, Paris, and London this month, and more adventures to come beyond that. And as long as I can let myself be dragged out of the apartment, I’m likely to find beautiful things and beautiful people, friendships developing with big plans in off the beaten path pubs, and plenty of good wine and great coffee. E dolce, no?

“Yesterday is but a dream, tomorrow but a vision.  But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope.  Look well, therefore, to this day.  Such is the salutation of the dawn.” -Sanskrit Proverb

yours.Rachel

lunedi

If you’ve taken French or Spanish, your cognates should serve you well enough. That means Monday.

Today, even in Rome, is still a Monday. I’d like to think that such days don’t exist here; perhaps the pope outlawed them in some amendment burried deep within Vatican II or something. Or that in a place this beautiful (and holy?) should have enough positive energy that the Monday demons should have no power.

Unfortunately, neither of these is the case. This morning I woke up sick again. I spent 45 minutes looking for towels (the ones I washed mysteriously disappeared), and then had to take a cold shower anyway. I walked all the way to the school to discover that my class was canceled (a mixed blessing), and then I lingered expectantly around the house for the rest of the afternoon. Doing nothing but thinking about all the things I should be doing. I left the house for class, and stumbled into my classroom fearing I was late, only to remember that my class tonight begins at 6:45, not 6:15. The full classroom seemed quite amused.

Even here, Mondays happen in full force.

on the bright side, I struck up conversation with a very attractive store clerk near my house. He asked me my name, and upon hearing it he smiled. “Ahhh…Raquel…that’s a beautiful name” in broken English with a heavy accent. I smiled, and said maybe I’d see him around. I’m not sure he understood exactly what I said, but it didn’t really matter.

definate silver lining.

yours.Rachel

men, and music

I don’t have time for men who don’t improve my music collection.

We were sitting back to back in the Admissions Office. He was preparing for an upcoming visit day and/or getting paid to do nothing – I was grading tour guide tests. We exausted friendly conversation and were left with nothing but the sound of the copy machine, and quickly he turned on some music. “This doesn’t bother you, does it?” he asked. “Not at all” I laughed, “It’s too quiet in here anyway”.

But as I listened to a string of sugary pop songs I began to reflect on the situation.

He’s a very specific type of guy. He’s nice. Quite nice. He’s relatively clean cut, and he’ll probably be a Doctor or a Lawyer or a Business Man one day. He’ll get married, have a pretty wife, and watch football. He’s a little bit of a “ho-bag”, and he’s had a bit more than his fair share of one night stands and drunken (pre-walk-of-shame) sexual encounters. He’s a seducer, but not a rapist. He cheated on his now ex-girlfriend, but he’s friendly and funny so you find yourself incapable of holding it against him. He is relatively unpretensious, reasonably attractive, and ridiculously charismatic in a sweet and silly boyish way. He belongs to a fraternity (how good are you? can you guess which one?)

But his musical tastes are horrendous.  They remeind me of the playlists on the favorite radio stations of 14-year-olds.  The music is simplistic, the lyrics aren’t even worth mentioning, and of course every person in America under the age of 25 knows every word to each of them.

Here and there I find myself liking a few of the songs, in that way that any normal human being enjoys something like oreos.  They’re shitty, they will probably give you cancer, and for some reason you just can’t get enough of them.  Like blue eyes and beautiful lakes.  But, given the choice between oreos and a warm flourless chocolate cake with fresh whipped cream and rasberry sauce, who in their right mind would be eating oreos?  We all have our oreos.  Kelly Clarkston.  Shitty rap music.  etc.   But I can forgive Dr. Dre as long as he comes with something else.

From the day I was born, almost every man worth knowing in my life has invested a good deal of time in introducing me to good music.  Whether fathers, lovers, friends, or simply  outstanding men I have known, I realized I can look back on each of the important males in my life and trace what they have given me.  From infancy I was raised on the DSO, Bob Segar, J Geiles, (CSX, my fellow Detoriters?) and the Blues on Saturday mornings.  and as I grew, I was given techno, music from the Detroit underground, and a smathering of other collections that play continiously in my life today.

… And he’s watching a Britney Spears video in YouTube.   None of us can help but glance at the trainwreck that was some award show performance from the former pop-queen, but he stays glued for longer than the rest.

something shitty come up on his playlist.  He’s tickling the girl next to him, smiling coyly.  and all I can do is chuckle a little bit inside.

“Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” -Berthold Auerbach

yours.Rachel

relatively scattered thoughts

“This is interesting”, she said. “This is the Rachel I’d always heard about but that I hadn’t seen until now”. When I asked her what she meant, she responded “the fuck it I’m going to work out Rachel.”

I’ve always had fair degree of fuck it in me, especially when matters like my formal education are concerned. With two tests this afternoon, I’ve already worked out, gotten dressed up, and now I’m spewing writing as I sit with my feet upon my astronomy notes pondering the relative significance of this place.

I flip through my Franklin Covey – clad in Ralph, carrying Kate, and stillettos. I break fast far too early with a slice of cold pizza. Amused by duality and disgusted by this final admission of a fuck it. I don’t mind fucking my education, because I’ve spent my life setting up a game where the stakes were in the palm of my hand – I’ve learned to play the system such that even the point of “loss” is still a relative success. But the idea of fuck it to my spirituality is revolting.

And she laughs at me as she makes her door decs, remarking that fucking it for her academic success is an everyday routine. and I’m glad I’m never going to get a PH.D.

And I’m counting. days, and things that come in the frame of days. then months. and then years.

and, as is often the case, I am anywhere but here.

update?

ok not really.

now that i’m like a real person, i don’t have time to blog everyday.  i’ve started work, and as we speak i’m dressed up and headed to some members only club for my boss’ birthday.  i’ve been too exausted and/or generally over-saturated to write, but let me tell you… i have a lot to tell you.  i’m learning all the time, about all sorts of things, and i promise a comprehensive week in review when i get to the weekend…and have time to breathe.

for now – happy 4th of july!  enjoy your beaches and bbqs as i’m here, working and playing(?) in cold and rainy london.

much love.

yours.rachel

wine and musings

At present, I’m sitting in my kitchen facing the window that looks out into a tiny locked courtyard (it connects to my friends room, and one of these days we’re going to beak out there and sit in it – in all of its 6×12-foot-with-not-but-one-crunchy-leaf-and-an-empty-can-of-Stella-Glory) with the last of the day’s sunlight streaming in the window. Eating something that resembles a sandwich with tsadziki, turkey, olives, and a lovely bottle of Savignon Blanc (of which I’ve offered glasses to my roomates and houseguest of course.) I’ve run off to the kitchen to be an introvert – a thinker, a connoiseur of human folley, and a snob as it would seem. And of course, to finish the bottle.

…but my kitchen has been invaded…There’s a whole crop of people who’ve joined me in my solitude. I appreciate some of the conversation though… and the internet calls.

an hour later. My computer battery has just about died – I move back into my bedroom. After an intense picking apart of someone else (I love picking everyone else apart almost as much as I love picking myself apart.) my mood is completley different. Analytical, but in a pragmatic sense…actually, maybe its the same. I’ve got that feeling where your mind and your body seem to move like molasses…slowly but deliciously. I’m looking all around, inside and outside me, for something to fixate on…

We did an excercise in my English 101 class once…a class which, by the way, revolutionalized my life. When we couldn’t think of what to write, we made a list of things we liked or saw or remembered in an attempt to trigger feelings that would empower us to write… We drew them from the room around us, and I’m feeling that given the 400 directions my mind is going in right now, I should pull from my room and my conversations and my bed and my head and my roomates and my reading and my soundtrack all the things that I live…(I meant to type “like” but I typed it wrong but I like this way better so it’s staying.) Like an exibit I saw at the Tate Britian…in no particular order other than the order in which they appeared in my life which could be nothing and everything…

my stuffed monkey george. flowers, like Kat’s birthday flowers…but not carnations. Lillies. ‘love is not a victory march, it’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelulah.’ photography…my camera, even though I don’t like it. pink highlighters. my sapphire ring from my parents for Christmas, snickerdoodles, my Dad (he’s in Mumbai today), wanting to go to India, Greece, lovers. ‘remember when i moved in you, and the holy dove was moving too. and every breath we drew was hallelulah.’ LOVING that line, waiting for it. floods. somehow being completley hilarious. sleigh beds. my Ethan Allen bed from the commercials with the beautiful bedposts with the lizard crawling up it, Costa Rica, toucans – singing. me….. all I ever learned from love is how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya.’ lie. ….water. ice. spinich in my fridge, frozen. the waterslide from that recurring dream….Elepahant Gun is on Shuffle haha…driving, my red jeep, Francis’ red Jeep, the WRIF and the sunset, singing Rob Zombie at the top of our lungs, looking back over my sholder at Rick commendearing the back seat, weed and cigarettes, Amsterdam, new friends, redheads, photographers, ‘I’ll be your mirror’. boys who make me CDs. the amazing music that then appears on my computer when it shuffles my collection. I want a new YelloBeat…

I’m not really sure what purpose that served, other than my own mindless rambling. Maybe it’s a part of that whole ‘life in the moment’ thing. Which I’m actually better at than I give myself credit for.

“We know how to slow down and enjoy life, which includes frivolous things…like sleigh beds.”

yeah, I like that.

“Our main business is not to see what lies dimly in the distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.” – Thomas Carlyle

yours.Rachel

PS…..

Want to hear a funny story? Today, Minnesota gone UMass boy who thinks he’s God’s gift was walking with me to class telling me about his weekend in Edinborough and how everyone pees everywhere all the time because they’re so drunk…i was only half listening. I talked about wanting to stay in London and enjoy living here, like I’d never be able to do again. “Really, he said? But that’s what the week is for. Besides, there’s noting to do in this place but drink…“

Behind my enormous sunglasses and hair blowing in the wind, all I knew how to do was laugh.