Merry Christmas!

To all of you who celebrate it, here's from Natalie and me and our freshly painted feet.


Merry Christmas!

(Left: Natalie; Right: me)

Christmas Eve

As is  tradition, my sister Natalie and I stay up every 12/24 to be awake when Christmas and Santa arrive. This year, it's no different. We're sitting, listening to Regina Spektor, and painting our toenails. Or, rather, Natalie's painting them. After that, we'll read Peef and The Polar Express (which we watched earlier this evening) and drink hot chocolate. The best part of Christmas lies in these moments.

Every year, it's the feeling of timelessness and peace which get to me the most. I feel connected with my sisters more than any other time of the year. Maybe that's in part because I'm now at college, but it's wonderful and rare to sit down with my little sister and hang out into the wee small hours of the morning. 

Christmas, for me, is a time for family. Of course, that means not only my blood relatives, but my closest friends and dearest communities. That includes my new family in the Evergreen Queer Alliance, the Meadowdale Gay Straight Alliance, Gender Neutral Housing, my friends at school, and my posse back at home in Edmonds.  Although I can't spend the holidays with those folk, I love them dearly. 

And I'm glad for this time I get to spend with my family. I hope that all of you out there have a time or an occasion when you can go home, settle down, and remember who is important to you. For some people, it's not even blood relatives. For some, it's their friends scattered throughout the world. But whoever it is that you love and depend on, who you miss and who you need in your life, I hope you find time for them. 

Remember who's important. Remember those who have helped you or needed your help. Remember to spend time with those who keep you sane - who help you stay human in this disconnected modern world.

And don't forget to celebrate the birth of Christ tonight, my friends. It may be your only chance for the next twelve months.

Peace and love.

Truck Stop Rainbows: An Excerpt

Truck Stop Rainbows

Iva Pekarkova

Prague, Czechoslovakia, 1987. (Read: the Soviet  Union)

Individualism... We all felt exceptional to some extent.

Perhaps not unusually intelligent or gifted, perhaps not infused with any special ability or strength that made us somehow better than anyone else. We were simply different - and from many experiences we knew very well how few people understood us.

There was an enormous number of exceptional people. Hundreds of independent individualists, people understood by no one, standing in lines in front stores and stepping on each other's feet in trams. Among the crowds of lonely seekers for understanding we wandered through Prague without a word to anyone. If we did, after all, enter into conversation with someone, the conversation was brief and passing, or it lingered so long at the level of superficiality that each party concluded that the other was one of those people who understood nothing. There were no magical moments of agreement or glittering instants of friendship. The Praguers wandered through their city day after day, shielded by little bubbles of opinions they share with no one. Hitchhikers wandered the republic - and only by terrible accident might you discover that this other person sitting beside you shared your destination. Lonely microscopic personalities wandering across an overpopulated globe.

We lived separated by our silence, tedium, and anxieties.

And if - even just once in your life - you actually met someone, someone with whom you never ran out of things to talk about, that was an absolute personal miracle, pure and simple.

Snow

I am currently in the process of surviving my first urban snowstorm, and today, I went for a walk to survey the damage. Really, there was none. They sky was grey, the ground was white, and the people were all bright and colorful jackets, scarves, and hats. And everything seemed endlessly more peaceful than on a usual Sunday before Christmas in Edmonds. People were walking to their destinations, sledding on closed roads, spending time with family over warm beverages. The sounds of cars were nearly nonexistent.

When I made it to the Edmonds Bookshop, I had already been out a half hour and it was time to warm-up. I went in with the sole intention of browsing till I could feel my hands again and then splitting for the beach. I should have known, however, that I can't go into a bookstore without buying something, so I ended up putting a copy of Michael Chabon's Maps and Legends on hold. It's his only non-fiction, a book about writing, and it's cover was stunning. Three layers of colorful landscaping covered a charcoal binding, the words "Michael Chabon" and "Maps and Legends" inscribed artfully (ie by hand) on the front. It displayed the Vikings, knights, cavemen, jungle men, and monkey kings all harmoniously moving about the image. There was no way I couldn't buy it.

Once that was over, I headed to Brackett's Landing. The snow snuggled up to the edge of the waves (though there were none), and the flakes disappeared into the perfectly still Sound. Out on the peer, the story was much the same. It was much colder, but still just as calm on the water. The snow in the air created a much shorter sight range, and I felt like I was in La Push again, staring out into the endless Pacific.

There was almost no sound. The waves the ducks congregating in the warmer waters created as they dove across the sea, playing with each other or collecting food. The sea lion huffing his breath as he dove in and out of the depths. The hum of the ferry as it docked and undocked, traveling to Kingston and back. The bells on the one sailboat nearby in the port, calling to the sea. The wind was silent, yet strong.

It was the first place of true peace I have ever found. It was the calm after the storm. Every animal around me joined in my relief as we hovered over the slow movements of the water. We sat together in this moment, breathing the cold air, warming our feet near the sea, and thinking of nothing but how wonderful life is sometimes. It wasn't until after I left that I realized I had not even thought of a single thing that had been bothering me before. Every worry disappeared before I even realized it. Expectations melted with snow in the lapping currents. I was free to tend to my true nature, outside the modern world. I was happy.

That's what snow does to a person, if you let it. I t shuts down the world without even hope of reviving it, and if you embrace the momentary peace, you might find yourself sledding with thirty other working people down one of the busiest streets in town because it's too steep to drive on. Or maybe you'll find yourself packed into a cafe downtown in your snow boots, listening to seasonal music, when you'd normally be meeting with a client or out shopping for gifts. Or maybe you have snow tires and a four-wheel-drive and you're already at the mall. But in any case, the snow storm is the one thing we Pacific Northwesterners have to count on when we just need a guilt-free break from life. Our worlds suddenly become that much smaller, isolated by the clouds in the sky, by the joy of letting go of everything in our daily schedule.

So I encourage everyone living through this incredible snow to embrace it. Say, Fuck my 9 o'clock meeting; I am stuck here with my family on the Sunday before Christmas - and I fucking love it.

Back for More

So, it's been a couple months since I've posted. I have a good reason, though, since I had no computer for a few weeks, and then the work in my program became far more strenuous than I ever imagined. But I'm back, and I will continue to blog.

On the subject of work, if anyone still thinks Evergreen sounds like an easy school, they are dead wrong. I've known more people who've dropped out of school here because it was too difficult than I would have guessed before I started my program. But now I get it.

So many students come to Evergreen expecting a stoner school. Easy work, easy access to drugs, no grades. But the review and evaluation process is stressful and difficult, the work is engaging and seemingly abundant, and the professors hold their students to high levels. That being said, weed, among other substances, is very easily accessible, and parties are about as frequent as seminars. But the level of professionalism, intellectualism, and dedication amongst the long-term students is impressive. Even though we're all a bit lazy (hey, we're undergraduates...), we all love to be in school.

And that's why I love Evergreen.