Directions [by Joseph Stroud]

Anyone who knows me knows that I have an affinity for moleskine journals.  Sparked my junior year of college, I have since started a mini collection of unfinished yet severely tarnished journals.  In the spirit of this trip, I bought a new one: unscathed; unmarked that is until I went on a search for the perfect words to grace the first page.  Rifling through "Good Poems," a so-called textbook from my poetry class, I knew Garrison Keillor would come through for me with this compilation.  And he did, of course.  In the section entitled Trips was this poem by Joseph Stroud:

Directions

How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of this world

Take a plane to London.

From King's Cross take the direct train to York.

Rent a car and drive across the vale to Ripon,

then into the dales toward the valley of the Nidd,

a narrow road with high stone walls on each side,

and soon you'll be on the moors.  There's a pub,

The Drovers, where it's warm inside, a tiny room,

You can stand at the counter and drink a pint of Old Peculiar.

For a moment everything will be all right.  You're back

at a beginning.  Soon you'll walk into Yorkshire Country,

into dells, farms, into blackberry and cloud country.

You'll walk for hours.  You'll walk the freshness

back into your life.  This is true.  You can do this.

Even now, sitting at your desk, worrying, troubled,

you can gaze across Middlesmoor to Ramsgill,

the copses, the abbeys of slanting light, the fells,

you can look down on that figure walking toward Scar House,

cheeks flushed, curfews rising in front of him, walking,

making his way, working his life, step by step, into grace.

peace to you,

liz

In Preparation

I've been a little overwhelmed these past few days.  Actually, I have been "a lot" overwhelmed.  Thursday night I was unable to fall asleep until 3 in the morning or later.  Friday, I spent the day running errands, picking up paychecks, depositing paychecks, eating dinner, and... packing.  I am just one small percentage of the whole of women who believe that in order to travel, and travel well, we must pack everything we have ever bought.  Combing through my bathroom that evening, I found myself gazing longingly at a bottle of hand lotion I bought sophomore year that's still full, thinking, "I need hand lotion for my trip."  I picked it up, looked at it for a second before my mind snapped to and yelled, "Down, Liz!  Put the hand lotion back in the basket."

I was convinced I needed all my jeans (which would seem like a good idea if I owned two pairs.  But, as my friend Neil--who owns one pair--now knows after a recent conversation about denim, I own close to 10 pairs of jeans).  Deciding which to bring and which to leave home has been a source of contention for me.  I'm still wrestling over that, as well as how many sweaters, thermal tees, socks, and pairs of underwear should join me across the pond.  I want, I need, all my clothes to see England... don't they deserve it after hanging from my closet or being stuffed in drawers for so long?

I had another close-to-sleepless night on Friday.  Had my alarm not woken me up at 8:30am, I do believe I could have slept at least until 10am.  But alas, my last shift at Talbots was waiting for me--four hours that I aimlessly walked through with my mind half asleep, my body on the brink of drunkenness as I drove home to, once again, devote hours to packing.

I finally reached a point close to 10 last night where I could fit everything in my suitcase and maybe try to cram more.  I crawled into bed shortly after, experiencing 9 hours of uninterrupted sleep that was so deep I dreamt my family was going to spend two weeks on vacation in Vietnam after a short trip to Hong Kong and before that: Australia.  I attribute these destinations to two things: my friend Seth's trip around southeast Asia, and the many chapters devoted to the Vietnam War in Tom Brokaw's "Boom!  Talking About the Sixties," my latest finished read.  I woke myself up after expressing concern to my father that the Vietnamese don't like Americans and we could be killed.  Lovely, I tell you.  Just lovely.

I couldn't fall back asleep because I realized I forgot to pack my converter, and my flat iron.  My nicely packed suitcase now needed room for two more bulky items, and I crawled out of bed to check the size of my converter case.  Only the case didn't hold a converter--at least not the kind of converter I needed.  Instead, it was a converter for internet access.  Not hair dryer access--internet!  As I perused the internet, trying to find a store that would sell what I needed I became increasingly frustrated as I realized society's obsession with interconnectedness and lack of concern for basic beauty survival like blow drying and styling hair.  I think I may just make a trip to Boots upon landing in London and buy a flat iron that fits British outlets.  

So I hate packing.  And I hate preparing for trips because I inevitably forget something.  Tuesday evening can't get here fast enough, yet I think I'd like to hold off on boarding the plane until everything is settled, which I fear would take much longer than two-and-a-half days.  Oh goodness. 

Giving Up and Letting Go

Never do I feel more like a control freak than when I plan a trip.  Phone numbers and addresses and tickets suddenly pile up in my head, and before I know it I have clicked on a word document, my fingers typing out an itinerary that begins with the first hour of the first date that I leave.  Every minute detail I could ever need is saved and printed, filed away in a folder that will accompany me on whatever journey it is I will be taking.  

My planning style, unfortunately, always consists of tension between concentration and procrastination.  While I can't survive without an itinerary, I hardly ever create it until two or three days before my departure.  I inevitably forget to print out reservations after I made them months earlier, resigned to call the airlines or hotel in order to reconfirm my original confirmation number.  I put off asking friends if I can stay with them until the last possible moment before I hit sheer panic.  I'm always late and hardly ever early.  I am a self-professed traveling contradiction.

Most, excuse me, I mean all of my solo trips have taken place stateside.  Since having declared a year and a half ago that I would be going to England sometime within the year after I graduated college, I've had several sleepless nights in which I try to convince myself to make reservations at L'Abri and order plane tickets and search for a railcard.  Reservations were made this past summer, tickets purchased in the fall, and I just finished that hunt for a railcard yesterday only to realize I can't get it until I land at Gatwick Aiport (grr).  I still need to complete my itinerary, discuss whether my mom or I will buy tickets for the London Eye and Vinopolis and the Roman baths/costume museum in Bath.  Dad and I still need to decide when he flies to London, when we fly to Italy, and how we'll be getting back.  All in a week, I keep telling myself, all in a week.

With my heart beating a little faster these days, my mind racing as if completing a 200 yard dash to the finish line, I'm trying to remember what it really means to travel.  That beyond itineraries and tickets and reservations are experiences that I could never really plan.  Getting lost and missing connections and learning new transportation systems are all part of the adventure, the stories I'll tell when I get back.  No one will care that I paid way too much money to go on a wine tour--they'll care that I got lost trying to find it, or dropped my wine goblet (like some people I know), or tried the best wine I've ever had.  

I'm nervous to travel alone in a foreign country, but I think I'll take to it just as I have flying alone and driving alone.  No one tells you that some of your best reflections take place behind the windows of a plane, a car, a train.  You just have to know that they do; you have to believe they will because they always have.  I'm trying give up my need for control (but never the itinerary), and let go of my fear and expectations.  I'm trying, I really am, and I think that when I get back my trip will feel more like a hundred experiences, like footprints that created new paths in snow rather than walking along a pre-existing plowed road.  At least, that's what I'm hoping for.

Death--Or Something Like It

I hate saying goodbye, and yet it feels like that's all I've been doing lately.  Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.  I'm not sure why we even preface a "bye" with "good."  What, I want to know, is good about a bye?  Bye means waving at someone's back when they've turned away from you, when you know you won't see them soon--or ever, maybe.  Bye means releasing desires, hopes, dreams from the fists you have so tightly wrapped around them.  Bye means losing pieces of yourself, pieces that create holes in the wake of their absence, holes that you only wish could be filled again, but never will because what once filled them can't ever be again.

I said goodbye last night.  Lying in my bed, pillow cradling my aching head, I wept over what I've had that I don't have anymore.  I cried because only hours earlier a band that managed to weasel its way into my college memories was playing for the last time in a barn in south Marion, Indiana, my home for four years, the home I just said goodbye to seven months ago.  I cried because I live ten hours away, ten hours I couldn't justify spending on yet another trip to see them play.  I cried because I felt removed from my old life, from the things that were at my finger tips only months ago that now are hundreds of miles away.  

I'm saying goodbye in less than two months.  I'm leaving my friends, my family, these United States, to go to a country that I've been to before,  yet have dreamed of living in since I was a child.  And I know that I'm already setting myself up for more pain--more goodbyes--when two months later I will return, with more holes, more pieces of myself that have abandoned me, choosing to stay overseas in a place that I may not ever revisit.

And then, because this seems to be an ongoing theme, I am saying goodbye to Atlanta when I get back.  Even though the city has lost its charm, has grown old and dowdy to someone who enjoys (too much) new things, new explorations, I still will miss so much about it.  I will miss who I became while living here, the independence I gathered up inside myself after spending three summers away from anyone I knew.  I will miss the people I have met--though few and far between, they have helped me, encouraged me to press forward, to pursue goals I've only made within the few years that I have been here.  I will miss the High, the Fox, Atlantic Station, Ikea, Virginia-Highland, L5P.  I will miss getting lost, determined, though, to find my way even when it seemed hopeless.  I'll miss my bakeries, sweet tea, sweet potato fries, a culture that embraces both "sweet" and "fried" in their culinary vocabulary.  I will miss a lot.

So I'm saying bye, not with a "good," but with a huge, awful sigh.  I am crying over the things I am losing: music, experiences, home.  And I am resigned to the fact that I don't know what the hell I am saying hello to.  That at the end of these byes, there doesn't seem to be any sort of glimpse as to what will greet me.  If these are deaths, if these byes are a letting go, then I want new life.  I want birth.  I want something to hold onto.

I'll See You In April

Last weekend, my mom and I drove up to Indiana for what would be my last stateside road trip until April when I return from the UK.  With a stop in Nashville, two days in Indianapolis, and a visit to my alma mater, I found that I kept saying the same phrase over and over: "I'll see you in April."  Sometimes, succumbing to self-doubt, I would say, "Hopefully I'll see you in April," or "I'll try to see you in April."  But often I just stuck to the former, knowing that no matter what I wouldn't be seeing any of my friends for at least five more months.  At least.  

One good thing (among many) that came out of the weekend was an impromptu reunion with my quadmates from sophomore year.  In 2005, Jess, Libby, Elise, and I made the crazy decision to live together in one room at the end of one of the residence halls.  Difficult?  Yes.  Life changing?  You betcha.  The summer after that experience, I made a collage of pictures and statements for their birthdays.  During our first week of junior year, I presented each with her own frame filled with memories.  I came across part of that collage the other day.  And since I didn't make one for myself, thought that I would dedicate this post to them, my dearest of friends.  Here's to you, ladies...

You know you lived in the Quad if...

There is at least one video or picture showcasing your mad dancing skills.

You competed in a “Poop Race” even though you knew you’d never win.

[before it all began... 80's skate night freshman year]

You’ve hated at least one boyfriend (either your own or someone else’s).

The most stressful times were reasons to start a dance party.

[at the beginning... Island Party sophomore year]

You let your quadmates talk you into wearing pajamas to Steak ‘n Shake, staying out until 2 in the morning, and sleeping on the hard floor instead of your comfortable bed.

You made a resolution to work out with your quadmates every Saturday morning, but only hit the treadmill twice.

[after it ended... my birthday celebration in Fort Wayne junior year]

You know every guy Liz had a crush on, when she started liking him, why she shouldn’t like him, his nickname (if he had one), and Elise’s prediction for her love life.

You find yourself shortening every word that comes out of your mouth. (i.e. libe, din)

[the beginning of a new era... graduation 2008 senior year]

Every week involved at least one emotional breakdown and you were prepared.

You spent more than one occasion dressing a quadmate for a spontaneous outing.

[multiple generations... libby and jodi, lise and georgie (from the block), jan and liz, jeannie and jess]

The nicknames “Hairy Mother,” “Red Beard,” “Black Top,” and “Crying Mustache” bring back fond memories.

Your quadmates will not only be invited to your wedding, but will be the ones keeping you sane.

[nothing can keep us apart now... lise and austin's wedding summer 2008]

The thought of Jess yelling at you while half asleep was enough to make you shut up.

The thought of Elise staying up late was enough to make you take a nap.

The thought of Liz asking you to be quiet was enough to make you cringe.

The thought of Libby ever being a nuisance was enough to make you say, “Yeah right!”

[forever besties... impromptu reunion fall 2008]

Your shoulders were always wet with tears, your brain was always zapped for advice, your eyes were always weary from late night counseling sessions, but your soul was always ALIVE.

[I love you, girls]

What to Make of Decisions

We make decisions every day.  Mostly mundane.  Sometimes stressful (oh the amount of hair I have lost over a doozy of a decision!)  But certain decisions, whether mundane or stressful, get lost in the shuffle of life, in the minutes and the hours that we spend distancing ourselves from those nail-biting moments until we forget that we ever made one.  And we forget, too, that certain decisions we made in our past can and will affect our future.  Sometimes we try to forget; other times we had no idea that one would carry more weight than we thought it would.

I decided nearly four-and-a-half years ago to attend a private Christian university in a small town in Indiana.  I left palm trees for corn, an ocean for the plains, a city for a bypass and gravel roads.  I left friends--good friends, the kind of friends you spend more time with than your own family.  I left a church that seemed healthy on the outside, but was beginning to decay.  I left it all to go to a state I had only visited a few times, and to live among people I had never met.  Best decision ever.

I made more friends--great friends, the kind you stand next to when they're saying their weddings vows.  I boycotted church (another good decision) so that I could find God outside of four walls with a steeple.  And I gave my heart to a place that wasn't really home, that didn't belong to me, yet somehow evolved into everything I needed.  

I thought that with the end of college came the close of four of the best years of my life.  Graduation meant good-bye, waving one last time to the crossroads of America.  I knew I would be back, but never quite knew how.  That is, until my parents made the decision to look for a new church.

Their decision has now led them to Joliet, IL, a city southwest of Chicago where, incidentally, the family of one of my dearest friends from college lives.  It is 3 hours away from Indianapolis (where several of my dearest friends from college live).  And it is smack dab in the middle of the Midwest, a place I decided to go to when I was only 18, never knowing that it would lead to this.  Never knowing that I had been preparing myself for where my family may relocate and where I will probably settle for at least a little while.  

Ah, decisions.  How soon I forget that I made you long ago.  How quickly I forget that you are all part of a plan that is bigger than me, one that extends beyond where I am going, yet always forces me to turn around and face where I came from.  I am praying that the church decides to take on my dad.  But I also hope that I take stock of the decisions that I have made, of their impact on my life; that no matter how mundane or stressful, any one of them may lead to something more. 

The Difference Between Coats and Cameras

This past Saturday, I worked from 5 til close at Talbots with my store manager, Franklin, and dear coworker, Suze.  We just did a set up last week with all of our new merchandise, but some pieces were shipped late.  One of those pieces happened to be a double-breasted black and white houndstooth peacoat.  

Understand that almost nothing at Talbots fits me.  I did buy a white sundress last summer, but even that had to be altered (at $22!  And even then it doesn't fit nearly as well as a dress would from, say, The Gap).  Needless to say, I take home pretty much all of my paycheck from the store.

This past Saturday, though, I made the mistake of trying on said peacoat.  Slipping into the lined arms of this 100% wool beauty, I thought that the tailors at Talbots Inc. must have been thinking of me when they made it.  With each button pushed into place, I looked at both Franklin and Suze, shock overtaking my face, and thought, "Why the Hell did I try this on?"

The coat was gorgeous.  I didn't want to take it off, and neither one of my coworkers wanted me to walk out of the store without it.  "You have to buy this, Liz," Suze said.  "It will be perfect for London!"  London, houndstooth, patent red shoes--it was as if all the stars were aligning within this one outfit.  

But I have a winter coat already.  In fact, I have three.  Three winter coats, a Columbia fleece, and a long sweater jacket.  I knew that I did not need another anything to ward off the cold.  Even when Franklin and Suze offered to buy it for me (at 50% off due to a special associate deal) and let me pay them back because they assumed I couldn't afford it right now, I turned them down.  Despite my resistance, I could afford it.  In fact, with the price being $134, I could have bought around 8 coats.  Yet I didn't need the coat, and in the end, I never did buy it.

What I bought, instead, was a new digital camera.  I should have done this 2 or 3 years ago.  I have been toting around a clunky hp since my freshman year of college; the experience has been less than fantastic.  My pictures are often faded, blurry, or washed out.  I have few settings and little patience to wait for the flash to finally kick in so I can get a picture.  

At $174, I spent $40 more on a Canon Powershot than I would that coat.  But I didn't have 3 cameras lying around--only one defunct relic.  So I think my resistance was worth it.  And maybe someday I will buy a black and white houndstooth peacoat.  I promise to take a picture with my new camera and post it.

blessings, 

liz