On nature, injury and quests for knowledge

After spending time in Wyoming, after driving across Montana, after another weekend at the cabin on Lake Riley, I'm convinced that the longing in my heart to live as closely immersed in nature as I can is here to stay. Whether it's a summer home, decades into the future, or a move in the next few years I don't know, but I just think that I could be very happy living in some one room cabin perfectly situated near water and open sky for an extended period of time. So there is another dream to add the huge pile already under my pillow (Want everything. If you break break going out not in. -Ondaatje).

The Wyoming trip was remarkable. The whole drive there went by in a blink for me, the combination of the scenery I couldn't take my eyes off of, Justin's company and his xm radio made the two day journey fly by. Tuesday night we arrived just in time for dinner and I was overwhelmed in the absolute best way possible by the flurry of an extended family sit down dinner. I will always be comfortable in a home full of kids and love, family. I wrote in my journal that night how after just a few hours with the Carrel family they had my affection. Justin had all of these plans for us, hiking and fishing and spelunking and more, the first thing we did was to go 4 wheeling in the badlands. Because I've already recounted it so many times I'll give you the short of it- I flipped and rolled (sideways and forward) my 4 wheeler, broke my right hand and separated my right shoulder, have a cast and a sling and a lot of vicodin. The healing of my shoulder will take an indefinite amount of time, for now and for the next few weeks I can't do anything that involves putting weight on or raising my arm (work, drive, do my own hair), I'm in pain all of the time, and my constantly on the go life has slowed dramatically to spending the weekday alone in my house and my weeknight depending on my friends (who have been wonderful). I'm saying this here not to garner pity or well-wishes, but because I'm sure this event and it's effects will be necessary knowledge to understanding future posts here. ANYWAY.

After the injury the trip was still so wonderful. For one thing I fell even more in love with his family. They were incredibly kind and accommodating and are these impressive people to get to know. We managed to do some fishing and hiking anyway and I got to see more beautiful scenery and Justin proved to be a great tour guide and nurse. In fact, after I returned last Sunday I felt a little bit lost without him knowing exactly how to give me my pills, help me put on sweatshirts, adjust my sling, etc.

I've tried to keep the discouragement at bay by stretching my mind and intellect. Last week was a great week for constantly refreshing cnn.com and reading up on the basics of economics, it's been 5 years since I took econ in high school. Also, after a few years of somewhat passively disagreeing with or being unsure of some of the concepts of the modern American Church I am confronting and researching these things. I am conducting this 'journey' under the knowledge that in my heart, soul and spirit I know that God is real and good and loving and infinite and a judge of absolute truth, that Jesus came to earth and was Divine, that the Resurrection was atonement and mankind's saving grace, and that even if I have a question or objection that I can't wrap my mind around I will, and actively do, choose my faith over a logical roadblock. I've been reading A Case for Faith (Lee Strobel) which has been answering questions and inspiring new ones and once I can get my thoughts in order I'm sure some musings while on vicodin will appear here.

In reference to the last time I wrote, I was cast alongside several of my best friends in Company. It's going to be a great show and great cast.

Amor,
K

I need time to stop. Right now please, for about 12 hours. That way I could get some sleep, filter out the bottle of wine I drank last night, take a shower, practice practice practice, and be ready for this audition in 1.5 hours. Instead I'm sitting here being nervous. I overdid my makeup trying to make myself feel better about the dark areas under my eyes that for some reason can't be washed away. But, I am refusing to dwell on my train wreck-ness right now. Listening to Jakob Dylan (as I have been constantly since last Saturday [that's how you can tell it was such a great show- loving the music that much more after seeing it live]), loving on the Huckleberry (dog), drinking water, all trying to make myself feel calm and like myself. Because that is what I have to offer (and what I have to believe I can contribute) at this audition. SO. So so so I will sing my song, then I will read my heart out, and whatever happens happens. This is the pep talk I've been giving myself for the past week. It wouldn't be so nerve wracking if all of my incredibly talented friends weren't also trying out... but no. I am not dwelling on that. Because I can contribute something to this show, I can, and that is what I need to show today.

Okay. So. I'm good. I'm good I'm good I'm good. Where is Charity? I need to be speaking this someone not typing it on the internet.

K

what have you been up to

There are a couple blocks on 2nd Ave that hold so many memories, walking through I see so many ghosts. I see all of these versions of myself; being 16 standing outside Singles with a couple boys with black hair who held my heart in their hands, Mel sneaking me drinks at the Crocodile, Darrin and I waiting for a table at Wasabi Bistro, that show at 2nd Ave Pizza the day before Thanksgiving when I told my mom I was staying at Melisa's but I actually went to Seattle, dinner with Aqui at Saitos, seeing Mack play at Tula's... All of these little moments packed into about two blocks.

Justin invited me to go to Wyoming with him to visit his family. I'm really excited about it. I love roadtrips, and I love going to new places. I'm excited about driving through Montana. That state captured my heart last time I was there. Also Justin's parent's dog just had 13 puppies! We leave a week from Monday.

Bumbershoot was last weekend, Char & I did all three days with Robbi & Jose and a couple more people joined us for one or two of the days. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around everything I saw and heard and otherwise experienced, but it was a great year. Highlights~ Jakob Dylan (maybe the best live show I've ever seen), Beck, Sondre Lerche, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and The Power of One exhibit (especially Nina Berman's work).

I always feel a bit melancholy after Bumbershoot because it signals summer is over. It was a good, good summer. I'll miss it. But I have adventures to come and I don't think that everything that made this summer so lovely is over yet. So yeah, life is still really good. I'm generally a happy girl lately and it's nice.

K

What I'm getting at... What I've been getting at

(how you live your life I don't care, but I'll sell my arms for you, hold your secrets forever) Ondaatje is always in my head. You must read The English Patient, and you must read Coming Through Slaughter.

One day I'll come swimming
beside your ship or someone will
and if you hear the siren
listen to it. For if you close your ears
only nothing happens. You will never change.

Here is what I believe, that my life... that your life, we're intertwined. There are some moments when I swear, I swear that we are connected through thoughts and soul and time, distance. My best dreams that I have are about you, every wish on every star, all of it. And those moments, little looks and words and all of that, the vagueness and things you said (I didn't have to say anything), that they are beads on a necklace- next to my heart always. I have this recurring dream where I'm running after you up stairs and you are always just out of the frame but I can still feel your presence, I know you were just there. I wake up and I swear you were just there. And through time zones we still have the same thought at the same time, through rain gutters, monsoon (this is how you touch other women /the grasscutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter.) And intertwined as I believe our lives are, I've learned to be happy with our distance, with our different lives. You there, with her, and me here, with him. Or him. Or him or him or him but the point is, I'm okay with our separate lives. And this proves to me that I love you, and this proves to me also that I'm not in love with you. And everything, all of the moments that we think about, that we replay in our minds, those are absolutely sacred to me. And I keep them close, I keep you close. So we can keep our secrets, we can hide the moments down in our souls, deep in our memory. But when you see a certain sky, catch a certain scent... if someone talks like I do (when someone stands like you do) pull out one of our diamond moments (like the first time you took my hand) and float through it, and I will too. And after years we'll see each other and not tell anyone. I won't tell her and you won't tell him.

Just don't tell her, or anyone. I haven't. That was ours. This is ours. The other truth is that my heart is still mending from you, sometimes a love lost song or movie catches me off guard and I can't breathe for a second. But time is going by, and that's good. I expect to be completely over you in another two years time and you will just be an old friend, a memory. So let me be your old friend, memory.

When we swam once
I touched you in water
and our bodies remained free,
you could hold me and be blind of smell.
You climbed the bank and said
this is how you touch other women
the grasscutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter.
And you searched your arms
for the missing perfume.
and knew
what good is it
to be the lime burner's daughter
left with no trace
as if not spoken to in an act of love
as if wounded without the pleasure of scar.
You touched
your belly to my hands
in the dry air and said
I am the cinnamon
peeler's wife. Smell me.

These are the words that are constantly in my head. You don't have to understand them or like them, but I do. You must read The English Patient. You must read the chapter entitle Katharine. You don't have to even read the book, just read the story ("I don't miss you yet." "You will.") Just read it, okay? (How does this happen, to fall in love and be disassembled?)

Call me. Will you call me?

On Men, Movies and How Epsom Salt Has Changed My Life

I've never subscribed to the belief that you shouldn't date someone who you wouldn't marry. I don't think that the success of a relationship is defined by how long it lasts, but more how you grow as a person, how you change. I look back a certain amount of time in my life, a fraction of what my life will be, and I see all the beautiful discoveries I made about the world and myself with the help of this other person and it is success. The point of the dates I go on, or the men I spend my time with, or how I live my life in general is not to find someone who I can plan a big party with and then attempt to live together and reproduce and find comfort and companionship. Not that I don't believe in marriage and I'm sure I'll take my walk down the aisle some day, but it's not this huge thing that must happen for me. You could argue that I'm only (almost!) 22 and I will feel that way in 5 years, and maybe I will, but while I certainly don't feel the desire to tie myself to someone for the rest of my life as soon as possible, I do strongly feel the desire to become a stable enough person to provide a home for children who need one. I realize that the whole family thing works best with two parents, but one is infinitely better than none. Anyway, what I'm getting at here is I feel quite solitary in my firm belief that it is okay to date and otherwise spend a great deal of time with someone who know you are never going to marry.

I've had several people say to me lately, "Oh Katie, you should meet SoandSo, he's in his mid 20s and nice looking and wants a girlfriend" and when I hear this I want to run away from and certainly never meet this man who is looking just for a girlfriend. What that says to me is that this man has set up in his head a certain set of requirements and if I, or some other girl who happens along first, meets those requirements he will desire her to be his girlfriend, then fiance, et cetera. And I suppose that that is enough for most people, but it is definitely not enough for me. I just feel as though all of society, especially those who are in my age range, are spending most of their time in search of this person who will meet their requirements. Maybe it's the whole years and years of societal pressure that says you're nothing if not neatly married and tied with a ribbon before your 30th birthday. And especially for women! I feel like for all the Jane Austens and Carrie Bradshaws in the world it is still frowned upon to be an unmarried woman at any age. And that is why, when I tell someone that I'm dating someone but I would never marry them, I'm asked why I'm wasting my time. First of all, any relationship with any human being is time well spent, secondly there is no giant clock ticking over my shoulder. I do not plan on having children biologically and I don't feel a husband is necessary to raise children. I sound so bitter here, but I swear lately I've been questioned on my dating life incessantly and asked, and I quote, about "marital prospects" (like I'm at a horse auction or something- "oh sorry, this one's teeth look bad, offer withdrawn, show me the next!"). It's kind of funny to hear the questions from my friends who perhaps married a little quickly because I hear the accent of jealousy, for all their declarations of happiness you can't deny how fun it is be entirely your own person.

(For all of this I'm saying here, go back to my March 6th entry, I do believe in true love and I do believe that I am destined for it.)

And now briefly on movies and Epsom salt:

I've watched Atonement and Becoming Jane lately. Both beautiful period pieces. Both heartbreaking. Both inspiring me to get my act together and write so I can finally, finally really try a shot at making movies. I just want to write movies and create characters and stories and show them to people. Every single molecule in my body just wants to be making movies with people who share this passion. There. That is something I feel incomplete without.

I injured my leg a few months ago in the big dance number in the last play I did and since then have been dealing with a calf muscle that wouldn't stop cramping. And by cramping I mean pain on a level 9, wake you up from sleep crying, all of a sudden can't walk, getting in the way of watching The Dark Knight cramping. On the advice of a Chiropractor I've been taking muscle relaxers (thanks to my mom who horded leftover meds from a car accident last December), but obviously that is a temporary fix and I prefer to live my life fairly substance free. Enter Dr Teal and his Epsom salt. I swear 30 minutes in a hot tub with 1 cup of the stuff has improved my situation hugely. Score one point for nature!

So sleep now. The next week I'll be with friends constantly, Hello Birthday!

Love,
K

one or two things I've been meaning to tell you

My summer has been really lovely. I've seen a lot of beautiful sunsets, I've caught that 15 minutes of gold before twilight a few times. I've kept myself in close proximity to water, felt it rush in my ears and around my body. I've been sleeping with my window open for months now, even though it gets cold sometimes. I've been reading more Ondaatje than usual. There is this part in The English Patient where he talks about souls ignoring their fate, I think about that a lot. I'm working on memorizing Sallie Chisum/Last Words on Billy the Kid. It is important to me to have poetry in my head, in my heart.

I've been storing up stories and little anecdotes I think you would like. My puppy, Huckleberry Finn, he is so big now. He went from a little baby to this huge, beautiful dog in about a minute. Anyway, he's not an incredibly vocal dog, he doesn't really whine or bark a lot, but he has this howl he does that I love so much. He hardly ever does it, but when he does you can see so clearly by the expression on his face that he is feeling emotion and the only way to express himself is this deep throated howl that is somewhere between a cry and a laugh. He never does it for food or to be let outside or anything, just when he wants one of us human beings to take him seriously or hurry up and get inside or reach down and give him some love. I hope you get to see it someday, it's adorable.

The country has been calling my name lately, which seems random given my love for the city, but all I can think about is buying a little one room log cabin next to a lake. I want to wake up and swim in cold, clear lake water. I want to wander through meadows and climb up mountains. I want to feel the calmness of being surrounded by nature. I want to learn all the stars and live somewhere I can actually see them. Maybe this will pass, maybe not. I feel constantly stuck between city and nature, entertainment and humanity, art and service. I'm banking on living the oxymoron, believing that none of these things are mutually exclusive. Trying not to feel like two different people.

I'm young and ridiculous and a little bit manic and so incredibly flawed, I know that. I never think before I speak, I don't keep my emotions in check and I laugh too hard, cry too often, get angry too quickly, and am apathetic when I should care. And I am okay with who I am, because I'm working on it. I'm never going to be ordinary, and that is also okay with me. This is who I am, and I suspect that this is also who you are.

One more thing I wanted you to know- I am doing really, really well right now. And I don't mean just in this moment, or just tonight. I mean for the past few months I've been happy. So, I just wanted you to know. Thanks for your note, I'm proud of you.

K

I am different now than I was a week ago

I feel quiet and close to God. I realize (for the hundreth time) that these weeks I go away to serve God are the only times I feel good, and the rest of the time I am filling my life with distractions to forget that. I feel sad and lonely in this moment right now and I'm not sure why. I feel amazed that while I look at myself and see so many flaws God looks at me and feels love. I feel ready to hope again that something could come of my life in the near future. I feel ready to listen and ready to go.

Today was lovely. A talk with Mom about John 14 (I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you), the lake with seestors and Mom, Thai food and a nap on the deck, then waking up to one of the most beautiful twilights I've ever seen in my life and "randomly" opening up to 2 Peter to read "So then, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election certain, for if you keep on doing this you will never fail." Something has changed in my heart. Something has changed in my life.

K