twenty-two before twenty-three

i am a habitual list-maker. my journal is rife with lists: things i want (good caramel tea, a french market basket), places i’ve been (home, in love, paris), a summer 2009 to-do list (grow basil, take a letterpress class). people i’ve loved. countries i want to explore. all the things i wore three tuesdays ago. that sort of thing.

and so, in an effort to take full advantage of life, i’ve made another list: twenty-two things to try before i turn twenty-three. i plan to make this year as exploratory as possible. hopefully this will become a tradition, so when i’m ninety-five and my bad posture has given me a hunchback to rival quasimodo, i can at least know i’ve lived every year to the fullest.

so here goes.

22 before 23

1. Try Ethiopian food.
2. Run a 5k.
3. Visit Canada.
4. Knit a scarf…and actually finish it this time.
5. Learn calligraphy.
6. Make macarons or croissants. Successfully.
7. Go to lunch/dinner and a movie alone.
8. Learn some Italian.
9. Read L’elegance du herisson in French.
10. Use up the journal I bought in France.
11. Do a polar bear plunge.
12. See the northern lights.
13. Learn how to use my camera.
14. Read 10 classic novels.
15. Watch 10 movies on AFI’s 100 Years list.
16. Spend 24 hours technology-free.
17. Send 10 letters to friends and family.
18. Get rid of 50 things.
19. Volunteer at a homeless shelter/soup kitchen.
20. Take a class at MCBA or The Loft.
21. Go cross-country skiing.
22. Get a piece of creative nonfiction writing published.

Wish me luck!

(i do not know who the photo is by. if you do, please let me know so i can give credit!)

love is all you need

my heart is full.

By all accounts, this should have been a terrible summer. I’ve been dirt poor, unemployed, and i just broke up with a sweet, lovable, wonderful boy after three and a half years. My classmates are buying books for grad school, they have jobs, apartments, clearly defined paths they plan to follow, while i remain completely aimless, barely sure of my plans for the next month, let alone the next year. I should’ve been anxious and miserable.

And yet.

I’ve had a house full of friends.

I’ve had spontaneous backyard picnics, giggled over champagne with the world’s greatest roommate, sung Diana Ross songs at karaoke nights, made crêpes for groups of hungry houseguests.

I’ve gone raspberry picking, made jam, waded in the same Plum Creek that Laura Ingalls Wilder lived on, sneaked into the stadium at four in the morning to watch the sun rise, roamed a tiny county fair, gone skinny dipping in the river at midnight, ridden an elephant, explored many a sleepy midwestern town, climbed rooftops, roamed the Renaissance Festival, blown bubbles, had countless barbecues with beer and brats and laughter, grown a basil plant, taught high schoolers about writing, taken the State Fair by storm, built and slept in a magical fort for two weeks, and been surrounded by friends and love almost nonstop since June.

This is not to say it’s been all sunshine and joy. I have cried my eyes dry. I have spent hours curled up on the couch, listening to Joni Mitchell and feeling as if my heart was caving in. There have been unexpected moments, moments when the uncertainty is terrifying, moments that remind me of being happily in love, that have knocked the wind out of me. But my friends have been there, picked me up, dusted me off, carried me along, and I could not be more grateful. I have never felt more happy or more myself than when I am with these people. I have laughed until my stomach hurt more times than I can count this summer, and so what could have been three months of wallowing and misery and Ben & Jerry’s hangovers instead became the best three months of my life. I tend to fall in love quickly and easily, to be smitten the second a shaggy haired kid smiles at me, but this summer no boy could’ve held a candle to the amazing women I’ve had around. It’s hard to compete with endless laughter and a fort filled with friends.

I don’t know if there’s a moment when you know you’ve finally grown up. If there is, I haven’t found mine yet. But never have I been more happy with myself and my life  and the adult I’m becoming than I have been this summer, and this past year. It’s strange, because it’s also been so hard in so many ways, but despite heartbreak and uncertainty it’s still been the best year of my life.

These really are the happiest days. I’m so excited to see where they take me.

feeling beautiful.

In the midst of what is perhaps the most stressful week during my time here at Little College on the Prairie, I received the following email from some dear friends:

Hey BEAUTIFUL girls!

For our class, we have decided to explore ideas of beauty and body image by taking pictures of other women when they feel most beautiful. Sooooo….we want to ask YOU, as beautiful women we love:

When do you feel the most beautiful? Dancing naked in the sunshine? All dressed up and ready to party? Throwing pots? With your friends/significant other, or alone? Make-up or no make-up? Whatever it is, we would love to hear it, and if you feel comfortable, we would love to take photos of you doing/being whatever it may be.

It came in the middle of one of my most self-loathing days in recent memory–I’ve been feeling everything but beautiful–and happily, got me thinking. Here’s a list, for when I forget…

Things that make me feel beautiful:

• reading in bed with a cup of tea, a good book, and a sunny window
• summer picnics under shady trees
• playing with little kids
• laughing with my girlfriends
• singing sad songs, center stage
• being surrounded by flowers and pictures of loved ones
• sitting at an outdoor café, writing and sipping iced coffee
• chopping, stirring, sauteing, etc. in the kitchen
• kneading bread dough with flour on my cheeks
• walking home in winter, rosy cheeked and snowflake-speckled and bundled up

I’ve spent a lot of time in my life feeling not-so-beautiful, so I love being able to think of little moments that have nothing to do with how pretty my hair is or how much mac and cheese i should not have eaten last night. As I transition into grownuphood (it’s a word, i swear), I’m trying to take better care of myself…treating my body well in terms of food and exercise and sunscreen and sleep plays in here, but treating myself kindly is something i tend to forget. I think, as far as being a healthy adult goes, that not allowing my inner monologue to be one of constant criticism is just as important, if not more, as taking care of my physical health. Kinder gentler, as my mom would say.

The way I see it, my body and face are bound to change: time will crease the corners of my eyes, age and children and happiness will soften and widen my hips, things will sag and drag and not work the way they did when i was twenty-one. But if, at thirty or fifty or eighty, I can feel beautiful and happy just because of an hour spent making bread and humming to myself, if I make the effort now to treat myself kindly and hush my inner critic–well, that’s a joy all the sun spots in the world can’t take away.

gloom and grey

The days have turned cold again.

Sudden showers stuck in between warm, breezy spring days are one thing. Endless grey days, cold rains, and forty degree temperatures in the middle of May are quite another. Between the stresses of school and the most wintry spring in recent memory, I’ve been finding it hard to buoy my spirits. Usually I don’t have much trouble finding the good in the hardest of days, but this week has been difficult, and naps, shared glasses of wine,  and snuggling into my down comforter with friends have gotten me through.

But oh, how I long for summer!

muddy feet, wet hair, warm heart.

Yesterday, we had a rain like the rains back home.

Back in the South, summertime means the most incredible rainstorms. The air hangs heavy and humid for days, weeks even. Everything slows to a halt, you throw your windows at night hoping for a breeze that never comes.

Then, all of a sudden, the sky breaks loose. Fat droplets of the warmest rain you’ve ever known. Backyards become rivers, and you can’t help but take off your shoes and tilt your head back and smile into the raindrops. It might be my single favorite thing about summertime.

So yesterday, after one of my longest days in recent memory, just when i was starting to feel overwhelmed and homesick,the sky broke loose. And for ten minutes, I ran in the rain, and stood with my arms out and head tilted back letting the water rush over me. My hair hung in dripping waves, my feet were covered in mud and stray blades of grass. And for a split second, standing there with my eyes closed, I felt exactly like I did standing in the same kind of rainstorm back home, the summer I was fifteen.

Sometimes the universe brings you home exactly when you need it most.

(image from here)

small joys

It is the littlest moments in my life that make me happy.

Coming home to find the room flooded with sunshine.

The blur of green that takes over the forest in springtime.

Fairy lights & down comforters in the evening.

Hot tea with honey in a cracked wedgewood cup.

Laughing with friends, nestling my bare feet into the grass.

It is the moments like this last one, moments of rushing joy and the wonder of having these amazing people in my life, that make a lump form in my throat at the thought of leaving this place. I picture us at reunions, in our pajamas drinking wine together twenty years down the road, laughing over not-yet-bought dinner tables with husbands we haven’t even begun to dream of. I get these flashes lately, where all of a sudden I am completely sure of exactly who this person will be at twenty-seven, at forty-three, at sixty.

And yet, as sure as I am that some of these people will carry me through life, I know it won’t ever be like this again. After this June, the chances of all my dearest friends being in the same place are slim to none. Even the reunions and weddings and weekend getaways of our futures won’t quite be the same. Life will intervene, appointments and families and the distance caused by space and time…so in the meantime, I savor every moment, I stay up later than I should and put off homework and take leisurely lunches, trying to suck the marrow out of these last moments with the people I love.

There is something magical about being twenty-one, about having so much to look forward to. I am so excited to see what life holds for me and for us, where our paths lead, how each tiny decision will fit into the picture of determining who we become.

But oh, how I will miss those moments.