The Road Home

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

I did that from memory. :) It's my favorite poem. And what I love best about it is that Tolkien puts two versions of it into his books. And he only changes one word - "eager" to "weary." Read it again.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

It's different, isn't it? Completely changed. This is always my poem. Sometimes it's one version. And sometimes it's the other. Today it might be both.

I'm tired. Physically, I'm home. I've been sleeping through the nights and today I went to the library and picked up tax forms. Mentally and emotionally though, I think I'm still making my way across the Atlantic. Having Sarah home next Monday will help a lot. Going to the beach yesterday was good. I drove to the beach by myself and screamed all the way through the Tilimook State Forest. How is that place possible?? The beauty of it overwhelmed me. More than St Peter's Basilica in Roma. That's nothing. Nothing compared to the misty trees, those deep wooded hills and the light snow falling on the road. That was epic. That was majesty. That was grandeur. And it's in my state. It's practically in my backyard.

I said I was tired. And I am. I'm already realizing how much more complicated my life here is than what I had in Fulham. Not in a bad way. Just in a people way. There are a lot of people here. People that I love and I loved seeing at Kyle's wedding. If you're reading this and you were there, I hope I communicated how glad I was to see you. If not, please hear it now - I was very glad to see you and I so appreciated your support for our family. We needed it and we were happy to have you there. Even though it was kind of weird to have all of our worlds collide. :)

So I'm home. And the travels are over for now. But the Road goes ever on. That capital R "Road." Sometimes my feet are eager and sometimes they're weary. But they're always moving.

It's a dangerous business, going out of your door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.

travelin' through

Yesterday Sarah and I rolled into Salzburg on the train and it was not raining. Which was an immediate point in favor of us liking this city. The next few hundred points were delivered emphatically by the beautiful mountains surrounding us on every side. A point or two was taken away for the smoke filling every cafe we wanted to sit it, but overall, we are happy happy happy. I can't help but love a place that puts me within arms' reach of towering peaks and snow-covered hills. Gosh, this place is stunning.

Today we went on "The Sound of Music" tour. That's right. And it was such a good decision. Not least because now I can watch that movie and say, "I've been there! and there! and there! and there!" And probably only you - Daddy - would be able to sit through three hours of me doing that. :) But mostly because it took us out into the lake district which was lovely. And we never would have been able to get out there on our own.

By the way, did you know that Mozart was born here? Because you couldn't walk through Salzburg and stay oblivious to that fact for more than a few minutes. Mozart-worship is everywhere. I like the man well enough, but give me some Mahler and I'll forget Moz-something ever existed. Sacriligious, I know. But I was never a conventional music major.

We just came from Vienna and we have no idea what the city looked like. The wind and rain were so fierce that all we saw was the pavement and the insides of buildings. Can I just say - if I ever have to look at a rendering of the Madonna and Child again, I'm going to hurl. Or Dead Jesus in His mother's arms. I miss Impressionism...

In Vienna, however, we got to go to the symphony. And that lived up to every expectation we had. Debussy, Ravel and some other composer named Zemlinsky. It was gorgeous. Just absolutely divine. The opera, on the other hand, we left at intermission. "What a great experience," we said to one another. "Thank you for not wanting to stay."

Before Vienna was Vernazza in Cinque Terra on the coast of Italy. You'll have to ask me individually about all these places or this update will never end, but this village was classic little Italy. We loved it. We didn't enjoy Firenze as much. It was rainy and grey, but also, we'd just come from glorious Roma, which had completely stolen our hearts and our ability to immediately appreciate any other city. It was sunny there! Sunny and ancient and orange!

So yes. That is the traveling update. After Salzburg is Munich and then Amsterdam, Bruges, and for me - London and home! How quickly the time has gone. I'm anxious to be home, even while being present in the traveling moments - drinking in my surroundings, trying not to inhale too much cigarette smoke, drying out my boots each night, and dreaming of the tea pot which waits for me in Portland.

little mice

all of you will be grossed out by this, but it's so normal to me that i have stopped caring: we have mice in our flat. you may have known this. we actually did kill one. with a glue trap. and that's when we learned that there was more than one. the other night i was sitting on the couch - quietly - and one actually RAN ACROSS THE FLOOR TOWARDS ME. i gasped and it ran away. which got me thinking.....how often do the mice party uninterrupted in our flat? out in the open? while we sleep? while we work? how many of my things have they crawled upon? which led to this thought: it's time to move back to a house that has no mice. and a dad to kill the ones that do dare to enter our private domain. ha.

i need a cat. a vicious, killer cat.

but for now, it's fine. it is what it is. that phrase, the one i just typed out, "it is what it is" is one that i feel i use rather often. it's part of this characteristic i'm trying to cultivate called long-suffering. of course, this does not mean not standing up for yourself, not questioning authority or even making excuses for why life has not turned out the way that you wished it would. it simply means that sometimes there's nothing you can do. so you just shrug and say, "i'll deal." the mice? i've dealt. and soon i will move and that will be that.

so....moving. always traumatic. and for people like me and like sarah, it is sometimes rough. we are "in the moment" people. so we feel things intensely as they happen. it also means that sometimes we're fine. like tonight. we felt great. we sat around and drank wine and thought about sarah's closet being empty and her tea mug being packed away and we felt ok about it. funny, since we're both having a hard time.

and yet we're not. did i tell you? i have a job this summer? helping run my summer camp. with some of my favorite people in the whole of the world. look at me! using my leadership skills and singing for kiddos.

here's another new thought: i've started calling myself a woman. and my girlfriends women. and the guys are men these days. are we so far along? probably not (say the parents in their heads). but maybe we are. i am paying taxes. and rent. and buying groceries. and planning trips. and getting my own jobs. so strange. but it's all natural, right? it's all part of the process. and no one will grudge me the process. that's my prerogative. days go by whether or not i will them to. and i'm growing up. and deciding what that means for me. and while i might be a baby adult, an adult i'm turning out to be. what kind of adult? a very specific, performing, laughing, tea-drinking, slightly immature and needy, independent womanly single adult.

leaving london. it's healthy. time to leave the comfort zone. i can't move forward from here. so i'm going back. not backwards. always forward. but back to portland. for awhile. back to tilikum. :)

leaving the mice. and the really good, reasonably priced gruyere cheese. :( but also leaving this life that i've built on my own from so very little. it's an accomplishment. i don't think i'll realize or experience all the benefits of it right away. but it was the right thing to do. i'm proud of myself.

pense pense pense

that is winnie the pooh, for those of you who don't know. in french he is "winnie l'ourson" which means "winnie teddy." and instead of "think, think, think" he says "pense pense pense." i like taking french words and then anglicizing them. for example, "i was pensing the other day..." it's very descriptive of how i am most of the time. just living, traveling and pensing.

since you last heard from me i have been to newquay, edinburgh, york and cardiff. and three of them were beautiful and wonderful. cardiff was a dud. but more on that later.

newquay - the cliffs at the coast. sunshine, new shoes. the ocean. breathing and being. i climbed on a lot of cliffs that new year's weekend. and i sat and breathed in non-city air and watched surfers and listened to non-city sounds and it was good.

edinburgh - i wrote to a friend of mine: "while i loved the city of edinburgh, with its cobblestone, its castle and its 'closes' or alleyways, what i loved most was the high beautiful hill and the strong feel of the earth beneath my boots as i scrambled up the steep slopes and came upon hidden hollows on my way to the edge of the cliff." i hiked that hill twice, once to watch the sunrise and run about with my arms out, catching the scottish wind with my body. it was wild. and then i went and sat in the coffee house where harry potter was born and drank strong coffee and wrote. check out the pictures on the website. they are epic. once you see them you will understand why i visited that coffee house four times in three days - www.elephanthouse.biz

it was truly delightful. mmm....scotland.

next up: york! there is one place in york where you can stand and look about and see seven different buildings built in seven different centuries - 3rd and 4th, 13th and 14th, 18th, 19th, and 20th. it's ridiculous. there's a medieval wall running almost uninterrupted around the entire city and chunks of roman walls left as well. oldness seeps out the ground there. it's thoroughly haunted. :) and i went to an evensong service in the massive "minster". oh choirs....magic.

cardiff. hmm...what to say? basically cardiff (wales) was a big fat nothing. cardiff was ugly, uninteresting, dodgy and full of teenagers purposelessly wandering the streets in packs of similarly dressed friends. i hated it. that's a little extreme. but literally the only redeeming thing about the weekend was the four wonderful phone talks i had with four wonderful friends when i ended up back in my hostel at 6.30 that night with no plans to venture forth again until late the next morning.

and now i'm home with a head cold and a pocketful of cold-eze. london has made me sicker than i've ever been. it is truly stupid. but besides that i'm really really happy. i love the people in my life - here and at home. my journal is filling up with thoughts and my heart is filling up with psalms. i just learned how to write my name in chinese and my roommate made cookies. it snowed tonight and my church continues to be wonderful and beautiful and i am a good waitress.

good good things.