Well, I'm behind on blogging, so I'll give you the summary rather than the play-by-play! The last week and a half have flown by. I was struggling a bit with the learning curve with the horses and feeling a little intimidated, so Donn and I came up with a plan to do some focused work with the same reliable team for a few days, which worked beautifully. I've got a lot more practice and some more confidence now, and I'm mostly driving my own team for mowing, raking, and tedding, which is really fun. I love working with the horses! The weather has been nice and hot and sunny, and we've been making a lot of hay. Haymaking might be my new favorite thing. It's like a little bit of magic, making all the pieces fit together, judging the weather, and turning a field of grass into bales of hay in about 3 days. It's hard work at the end - the baling and unloading and stacking is physically demanding, and it's usually really hot outside when we do it - but it's the kind of work that makes you tired and sore in a good way. It's really satisfying to see the end results, and we always celebrate all that hard work with some cold beer and dinner out at the Three Bears Inn in Marathon.
I started milking the sheep last week, and now I'm milking on my own once a day. The sheep are wonderful, and milking is really relaxing and fun. Maryrose milks in the morning, and I milk in the evening, and whoever isn't milking is doing sheep chores. My days are slipping into a routine because of the sheep, which I really like. We still change our middle of the day plans around based on the weather, Donn's work schedule, and what needs to get done, but that's fine - gives me some variety, but I still know how and when the day will start and end.
Yesterday, we hosted a field day here at the farm sponsored by NOFA-NY. The first half of the day was a workshop on how to work with horses in general, and how to get to know and start to train a new horse. The afternoon was a hands-on hay-making workshop, where we demonstrated clipping, mowing, tedding, raking, and baling, and the participants got to ride along on the carts, try driving the horses, and help bale and stack the hay. I was in heaven. It was a big farm party where Donn really got to shine as a teamster and educator, and I got to help out a lot, demonstrating what I've learned so far and even teaching a little bit about driving and using certain implements. My favorite part was the end of the workshop, where we loaded 5 women on the hay wagon at once and had a baling-stacking-haywagon-dance party! (pictures below) It was the most socially-stimulating scene I've been at since at got up here - I really enjoy workshops (both learning and teaching), and you guys know I love a good party! We finished off the day with a farmer potluck, some live music, and Maryrose's homemade paella. That was the first time I've gotten to play music with someone else since I got here, and it was great. Eric, the intern at our friends' farm, and I played instrument swap with a guitar, mandolin, and a banjo, and we managed to cobble together quite a few songs. He even gave me a little lesson in clawhammer banjo playing, so now I'm daydreaming about buying a banjo. They sound so sweet! I was ready to burst by the end of the day, my heart was so happy. Luckily, it's a little bit of a quiet, chill, cloudy day today, and everyone else is tired too, because I'm exhausted. It was so worth it though.
Finally, I'm starting to feel a little more connected socially. I have a few friends that I can call or go out to do something with in the evening if I feel like it, and now I'm working on balancing my need for social time with my need for rest :) It's a good problem to have, I suppose. Miss you all, and hope you are well.
Love,
Aura
Monday, June 18, 2012
Friday, May 25, 2012
A Vocal Chameleon
I was feeling a bit reflective yesterday, and I started thinking about my social habits. This was triggered by a neighbor commenting to me that I don't have much of a Southern accent. He was probably the 4th or 5th person to note this in the last week. Last week, when I told one woman I was from Georgia, she said, "Yes, but where have you been living? You've obviously been away because you don't sound like you're from Georgia." The fact is, they're right - I don't have a Southern accent...up here. Put me in my Mom's kitchen, or better yet, a seedy bar anywhere in Georgia, and I'll sound just like the Southern girl that I am. The thing is, I've noticed over the last few years that I unconsciously tend to talk like the people around me. I shape my voice to sound like theirs. I don't necessarily sound like a native, but people certainly aren't asking me where I'm from all the time because I sound foreign to them. This happens to me in other countries and other languages sometimes as well. I also pick up people's speech habits and mannerisms. I do this automatically, not because it seems like a good idea, but because I have a personality that wants to fit in, to blend in, and to make friends.
In a larger context, I've observed that I do this with all kinds of things. When I go to a new place or meet a new group of people, I automatically observe their habits and their attitudes about the world, and I emulate them. It's easy for me to meet people. It's easy for me to make friends. I enjoy moving and getting to know new places. And part of this is probably because I have this tendency. When I go to a new place, I get right out of my house, knocking on the neighbors' doors, scouting out the places I like - thrift stores, libraries, bars, coffee shops - and introducing myself to people all over town. I listen to what they say, listening for clues to their general worldview as well as the words they tell me. I'm not afraid to put myself out there, and then I automatically fit myself right into whatever group culture already exists. I take that culture, and I reflect it right back. In a way, this can be a blessing. People are generally nice to me, and I tend to find it easy to make friends and feel welcome in a new place. This tendency, however, can also be a challenge. I have to pay attention to myself to make sure I don't get carried away. I have to remind myself of who I am, of my deeper goals and values, to keep from getting off track.
"Getting off track" - that's one way to characterize the 10 years of my life between 17 and 27, when I tried very hard, and mostly unconsciously, to fit myself into the group known as our dominant Western culture. I acted like the stereotype of what is desirable in that culture. I said the right things, got the right grades, got the right job, house, boyfriend, whatever...but it wasn't me. And I had no idea. I was unfulfilled and confused, but I didn't know why. When I finally realized that I was living a life I didn't want, and that I could just leave and go live a different sort of life, it was an epiphany. And after I left, when I looked back and realized that I had been trying to "fit in" and that I had been living a rather superficial sort of life (for me), I was mortified. I felt like a fraud. I would have told you that I highly valued authenticity and honesty, but it seemed that I had not been modeling those values. I had valued conformity over authenticity, albeit unconsciously. This realization shocked me and embarrassed me, and it took me a while to fully accept. When I did accept it, my first reaction was to swing the other way. I no longer wanted to talk to people who didn't share my values! I had little patience for the dominant culture and would cringe in pain anytime anyone mentioned a TV show they watched, expensive clothing they wanted to buy, or anything else that I deemed irrelevant to life. I would go home and agonize about the state of the world. Whereas before, I would let demeaning or derogatory comments (about groups or classes of people or about myself) roll off my back as I smiled and nodded, now I either confronted people, or more often, left - immediately. I had grown up with more tolerance than was helpful, and now I had none. I struggled to find people I could truly connect with, and since I'm a pretty social person, this isolation was maddening. I sequestered myself at home, reading and brooding about how our society was going to shit.
Fortunately, I eventually started to find some balance in my life. I met a great community of people (you beautiful Coyotes) who DID share my values, who I could connect with on a deeper level. Having this need met softened my harsh judgement and low tolerance for people who are different than me, and for myself. I started to open back up again, to trust people and to try to connect with them even if they were different than me. I accepted the fact that I am a beautiful, flawed, sometimes-contradictory-but-trying-hard human, just like everyone else.
So now, I seek balance. I don't always make my choices about conforming or not consciously - I still have automatic habits. But now I try to pay attention, notice my habits, and keep my general direction in mind always. I sometimes compromise by not bringing up my true feelings for the sake of peacekeeping in social situations, but I don't let it get out of hand. I occasionally create conflict where there needn't be any. I'm like a little pendulum, oscillating around that point of balance, but no longer wildly swinging from end to end. If something truly offends me, I try to find the courage to address it in a non-violent way, a way that models vulnerability so that people can hear my message. And fortunately, since I've started farming and doing nature connection work, these situations are few and far between. Now as I start to fit myself into the new groups, towns, and families that I meet, I look around and notice what I'm doing, and then I smile inside, because it's me - really me - that's fitting in. Well, besides that whole accent problem! I just don't know how to make myself not do that.
I hope that as I move forward in my life, I will find this adaptability to be an asset for connecting with people, especially people who are different than me. I hope that I can find a way to use these habits, not in a manipulative way, but in a way that softens, smooths, and helps people, including me, to really see one another, even in their differences. And I hope that I will remember to stay true to my values and that my judgement will be true, so that I can stand firm on the things that are really important and bend when I need to bend. Thanks for reading my ramble. As usual, I intend no judgement on others' lifestyle choices (nor my own), these are just some thoughts and observations. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Aura
In a larger context, I've observed that I do this with all kinds of things. When I go to a new place or meet a new group of people, I automatically observe their habits and their attitudes about the world, and I emulate them. It's easy for me to meet people. It's easy for me to make friends. I enjoy moving and getting to know new places. And part of this is probably because I have this tendency. When I go to a new place, I get right out of my house, knocking on the neighbors' doors, scouting out the places I like - thrift stores, libraries, bars, coffee shops - and introducing myself to people all over town. I listen to what they say, listening for clues to their general worldview as well as the words they tell me. I'm not afraid to put myself out there, and then I automatically fit myself right into whatever group culture already exists. I take that culture, and I reflect it right back. In a way, this can be a blessing. People are generally nice to me, and I tend to find it easy to make friends and feel welcome in a new place. This tendency, however, can also be a challenge. I have to pay attention to myself to make sure I don't get carried away. I have to remind myself of who I am, of my deeper goals and values, to keep from getting off track.
"Getting off track" - that's one way to characterize the 10 years of my life between 17 and 27, when I tried very hard, and mostly unconsciously, to fit myself into the group known as our dominant Western culture. I acted like the stereotype of what is desirable in that culture. I said the right things, got the right grades, got the right job, house, boyfriend, whatever...but it wasn't me. And I had no idea. I was unfulfilled and confused, but I didn't know why. When I finally realized that I was living a life I didn't want, and that I could just leave and go live a different sort of life, it was an epiphany. And after I left, when I looked back and realized that I had been trying to "fit in" and that I had been living a rather superficial sort of life (for me), I was mortified. I felt like a fraud. I would have told you that I highly valued authenticity and honesty, but it seemed that I had not been modeling those values. I had valued conformity over authenticity, albeit unconsciously. This realization shocked me and embarrassed me, and it took me a while to fully accept. When I did accept it, my first reaction was to swing the other way. I no longer wanted to talk to people who didn't share my values! I had little patience for the dominant culture and would cringe in pain anytime anyone mentioned a TV show they watched, expensive clothing they wanted to buy, or anything else that I deemed irrelevant to life. I would go home and agonize about the state of the world. Whereas before, I would let demeaning or derogatory comments (about groups or classes of people or about myself) roll off my back as I smiled and nodded, now I either confronted people, or more often, left - immediately. I had grown up with more tolerance than was helpful, and now I had none. I struggled to find people I could truly connect with, and since I'm a pretty social person, this isolation was maddening. I sequestered myself at home, reading and brooding about how our society was going to shit.
Fortunately, I eventually started to find some balance in my life. I met a great community of people (you beautiful Coyotes) who DID share my values, who I could connect with on a deeper level. Having this need met softened my harsh judgement and low tolerance for people who are different than me, and for myself. I started to open back up again, to trust people and to try to connect with them even if they were different than me. I accepted the fact that I am a beautiful, flawed, sometimes-contradictory-but-trying-hard human, just like everyone else.
So now, I seek balance. I don't always make my choices about conforming or not consciously - I still have automatic habits. But now I try to pay attention, notice my habits, and keep my general direction in mind always. I sometimes compromise by not bringing up my true feelings for the sake of peacekeeping in social situations, but I don't let it get out of hand. I occasionally create conflict where there needn't be any. I'm like a little pendulum, oscillating around that point of balance, but no longer wildly swinging from end to end. If something truly offends me, I try to find the courage to address it in a non-violent way, a way that models vulnerability so that people can hear my message. And fortunately, since I've started farming and doing nature connection work, these situations are few and far between. Now as I start to fit myself into the new groups, towns, and families that I meet, I look around and notice what I'm doing, and then I smile inside, because it's me - really me - that's fitting in. Well, besides that whole accent problem! I just don't know how to make myself not do that.
I hope that as I move forward in my life, I will find this adaptability to be an asset for connecting with people, especially people who are different than me. I hope that I can find a way to use these habits, not in a manipulative way, but in a way that softens, smooths, and helps people, including me, to really see one another, even in their differences. And I hope that I will remember to stay true to my values and that my judgement will be true, so that I can stand firm on the things that are really important and bend when I need to bend. Thanks for reading my ramble. As usual, I intend no judgement on others' lifestyle choices (nor my own), these are just some thoughts and observations. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Aura
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Roller Derby, BioDynamics, and Mowing...
Hello guys! It has been a busy week, but I'm taking a day off tomorrow, so I think I can stay up and write a little. Plus I slept almost 12 hours last night :) I had a crazy full weekend. On Saturday, we went to the Roller Derby in Ithaca to support our fellow farmer friend who lives down the road. She was fantastic, and the roller derby was really exciting. I've never been to one before! The rules were a little complicated, but I started to get the gist after a bit. Our farming friends also have an apprentice, Eric, who I got to meet on Saturday. He seems like a really nice, thoughtful person, and it was good to get to know him. We do potlucks with them once a week, and we'll also be doing some workshops together this summer. We skipped the afterparty (it was already almost 10, way past our bedtimes), but we stopped for milkshakes on the way home.
On Sunday, we went to our first big farm potluck. It was just my kind of party - tons of good food, music (they listen to Gillian up here too!), and people milling about. Wine and walking tours to see the guinea hogs (adorable!). We didn't actually play any music on Sunday, but I'm hoping that will happen next time. I went home full, happy, and sleepy - again, way past my bedtime!
On Monday, I went to my first CRAFT session. CRAFT stands for the Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training. Donn and Maryrose are mentors in the CRAFT program, and I am a member through them. They host farm tours and workshops throughout the season. This session was a tour of Remembrance Farm, which is a biodynamic farm outside of Ithaca. They are part of a multi-farm CSA, and they focus on salad greens, which was interesting to me. The afternoon was a workshop on biodynamics, which I found fascinating. I only had a vague notion of what biodynamic farming actually entails before the workshop. We talked about the preparations and practicalities, but Nathaniel, the owner, actually gave us a good perspective on the bigger picture too. This included some explanation of how biodynamics asks you to view the whole farm as a living organism, to minimize inputs and waste outputs, and to think about the health of the farm as a whole. He also talked a lot about contemplation and taking the time to sit, observe, and be open to changing your practices. I really appreciated his perspective and it definitely inspired me to learn more about biodynamics.
After all of that, I have been exhausted this week! I passed out at 5:30 last night, woke up at 7 to eat dinner, and then went back to bed. I think I might be caught up now :) This week we've done some work in the shop, taking apart mowers and various other machines. I love working on mowers. It's like working on a car, but without any electronics, small compartments, or fuel systems. Okay, it's not really like working on a car at all! But it's fun, it's much easier than working on a car, the tools are the same, and you get to get greasy. We've also done some driving, and I'm learning how to drive a mower. I'll have to post a picture soon. These things are kind of crazy looking. It's basically a little wheeled cart pulled behind to horses, with a mechanically driven 7 foot long mower blade hanging off to one side. I got an introduction a few days ago, and I was suitably intimidated (the blade is REALLY sharp). I tried it but didn't mow for very long. Today, I took a second turn, and I was much calmer, more relaxed, and ready to pay attention. I felt pretty good about the whole experience, and I'm starting to really enjoy driving. However, I still have a lot to learn. My reaction times are still slow, and I suck at steering while trying to do anything else. Whenever I have to pay attention to the mower blade or anything external, my steering goes to shit and I start mowing in a crazy line. Today I accidentally shaved off some of an ornamental and knocked over two potted plants! It got a little hairy, but Donn was right beside me the whole time, and I didn't panic. Overall, I had a great day, and I felt like I learned a lot. I can't wait to practice some more.
Okay, sorry if this has been a little rambling... Tomorrow I'm going to chill, run some errands, and maybe go riding with new friend!
On Sunday, we went to our first big farm potluck. It was just my kind of party - tons of good food, music (they listen to Gillian up here too!), and people milling about. Wine and walking tours to see the guinea hogs (adorable!). We didn't actually play any music on Sunday, but I'm hoping that will happen next time. I went home full, happy, and sleepy - again, way past my bedtime!
On Monday, I went to my first CRAFT session. CRAFT stands for the Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training. Donn and Maryrose are mentors in the CRAFT program, and I am a member through them. They host farm tours and workshops throughout the season. This session was a tour of Remembrance Farm, which is a biodynamic farm outside of Ithaca. They are part of a multi-farm CSA, and they focus on salad greens, which was interesting to me. The afternoon was a workshop on biodynamics, which I found fascinating. I only had a vague notion of what biodynamic farming actually entails before the workshop. We talked about the preparations and practicalities, but Nathaniel, the owner, actually gave us a good perspective on the bigger picture too. This included some explanation of how biodynamics asks you to view the whole farm as a living organism, to minimize inputs and waste outputs, and to think about the health of the farm as a whole. He also talked a lot about contemplation and taking the time to sit, observe, and be open to changing your practices. I really appreciated his perspective and it definitely inspired me to learn more about biodynamics.
After all of that, I have been exhausted this week! I passed out at 5:30 last night, woke up at 7 to eat dinner, and then went back to bed. I think I might be caught up now :) This week we've done some work in the shop, taking apart mowers and various other machines. I love working on mowers. It's like working on a car, but without any electronics, small compartments, or fuel systems. Okay, it's not really like working on a car at all! But it's fun, it's much easier than working on a car, the tools are the same, and you get to get greasy. We've also done some driving, and I'm learning how to drive a mower. I'll have to post a picture soon. These things are kind of crazy looking. It's basically a little wheeled cart pulled behind to horses, with a mechanically driven 7 foot long mower blade hanging off to one side. I got an introduction a few days ago, and I was suitably intimidated (the blade is REALLY sharp). I tried it but didn't mow for very long. Today, I took a second turn, and I was much calmer, more relaxed, and ready to pay attention. I felt pretty good about the whole experience, and I'm starting to really enjoy driving. However, I still have a lot to learn. My reaction times are still slow, and I suck at steering while trying to do anything else. Whenever I have to pay attention to the mower blade or anything external, my steering goes to shit and I start mowing in a crazy line. Today I accidentally shaved off some of an ornamental and knocked over two potted plants! It got a little hairy, but Donn was right beside me the whole time, and I didn't panic. Overall, I had a great day, and I felt like I learned a lot. I can't wait to practice some more.
Okay, sorry if this has been a little rambling... Tomorrow I'm going to chill, run some errands, and maybe go riding with new friend!
Thursday, May 17, 2012
A Very Full Day Off
Well, today was my day off, and what a day it was! I slept in this morning until a gloriously late 9 a.m. Then I made myself some buckwheat pancakes and waited on my friend Meghan to arrive. Meghan, who is one of my best friends in the whole wide world, was my roommate when I lived in Albuquerque. She had to come to Albany for work this week, and when she realized she was going to finish a day early, she rented a car and drove down to see me for a few hours! I was so excited to see her and catch up - it's been almost 2 years since my last visit out west. I lent her some boots and we tromped around in the pastures, chasing sheep and horses. We managed to catch one little lamb who was very patient and cuddly while we passed her around. Then we went to the Three Bears Inn, which is an inn with a restaurant in nearby Marathon, for lunch. We had yummy sandwiches and some sweet chilled wine called - Labrusca? Lambrusco? I'm not sure which - for lunch - Megs is a fan, but the locals supposedly think it is a terrible substitute for wine. Apparently the grapes are not very high quality. It was a little sweet for my taste, but if I thought about it like juice, it was kind of nice!
After Meghan left to go catch her flight, I decided to go to Ithaca to explore. Well, the first place that I went was the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. This magical place is the home of fantastic bird research, and they have a great website with all kinds of resources on birds and bird songs. I've used their recordings of bird audio at home when I'm trying to identify a new bird, and I use their eBird application to record birds I see around the house. When I realized how close they are, I almost started jumping up and down. It's 35 minutes from my door to the visitor center. When I got there, I felt like a pilgrim arriving at Mecca. I just wandered around with my mouth open for a while :) I told the receptionist that I just moved here from Georgia and I was so excited to be there, and she was really friendly and helpful. When I asked her about a bumper sticker I had seen in the parking lot (it said "Do you eBird?"), she called 3 people until she found someone to go track one down for me and bring it down to the lobby! There's a sanctuary there called Sapsucker Woods, and there are lots of trails through it. Unfortunately, I got there kind of close to closing time. I know where I'm going to be bright and early on my next day off! I almost couldn't resist the pull of that trailhead... Apparently they also have a sound lab where you can play with audio tools, and they have a few webcams on nests that are right there in Sapsucker Woods - I saw the herons in person! (http://www.allaboutbirds.org/page.aspx?pid=2433). I got a CD in the gift shop, and I tried to buy Jon Young's new book that just came out, What the Robin Knows, but they didn't have it in stock yet.
After that I wandered around downtown Ithaca, which is a cute little town. I played around in a music store, went to the health food co-op and bought all kinds of yummy stuff that I probably didn't really need, and drove around near the lake. Looks like there are some really nice hiking spots around here, so I'm going to have to check them out too. Overall, I had an awesome day. I feel very blessed to have good friends and to be in such a beautiful, culturally and naturally rich area. Hope you guys are well...
Love,
Aura
After Meghan left to go catch her flight, I decided to go to Ithaca to explore. Well, the first place that I went was the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. This magical place is the home of fantastic bird research, and they have a great website with all kinds of resources on birds and bird songs. I've used their recordings of bird audio at home when I'm trying to identify a new bird, and I use their eBird application to record birds I see around the house. When I realized how close they are, I almost started jumping up and down. It's 35 minutes from my door to the visitor center. When I got there, I felt like a pilgrim arriving at Mecca. I just wandered around with my mouth open for a while :) I told the receptionist that I just moved here from Georgia and I was so excited to be there, and she was really friendly and helpful. When I asked her about a bumper sticker I had seen in the parking lot (it said "Do you eBird?"), she called 3 people until she found someone to go track one down for me and bring it down to the lobby! There's a sanctuary there called Sapsucker Woods, and there are lots of trails through it. Unfortunately, I got there kind of close to closing time. I know where I'm going to be bright and early on my next day off! I almost couldn't resist the pull of that trailhead... Apparently they also have a sound lab where you can play with audio tools, and they have a few webcams on nests that are right there in Sapsucker Woods - I saw the herons in person! (http://www.allaboutbirds.org/page.aspx?pid=2433). I got a CD in the gift shop, and I tried to buy Jon Young's new book that just came out, What the Robin Knows, but they didn't have it in stock yet.
After that I wandered around downtown Ithaca, which is a cute little town. I played around in a music store, went to the health food co-op and bought all kinds of yummy stuff that I probably didn't really need, and drove around near the lake. Looks like there are some really nice hiking spots around here, so I'm going to have to check them out too. Overall, I had an awesome day. I feel very blessed to have good friends and to be in such a beautiful, culturally and naturally rich area. Hope you guys are well...
Love,
Aura
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Rain, Rain, Go Away
Well, it rained most of the day yesterday, and it looks like that's going to continue on today and maybe tomorrow. It felt nice yesterday, but now it's getting a little old! We were supposed to have a group of kids come yesterday, but they canceled because of the weather. We can't really work the horses when the ground is wet. They are stuck inside too and looking a little restless. Yesterday I worked on some harnesses and then ran a bunch of town errands. "Town" is Cortland, about 10 miles away. It's a pretty good size, and I managed to get to the bank, post office, library, Tractor Supply, etc. I finally caved and bought some okay gloves at the Tractor Supply. I have been looking and looking for some decent reenforced gloves for working in. Here's the problem: the men's gloves are too big for my hands, and the women's gloves are not very heavy duty. In fact, that's an understatement - they're mostly pink and frilly looking! I lucked out yesterday and found a small pair of men's medium duty hidden in the bottom of a bin, and I decided that might be the best I was going to get. I'd already looked at about a half a dozen stores on the way up here. For some reason, they only stock the heavy duty gloves in L and XL. Surely there are some men with small hands out there!
I mailed a few letters at the post office, including a letter to Joanna Macy and a letter to a blogger that I like and sometimes follow named Dan Pearce (Single Dad Laughing). What a weird thing it is to write a letter, particularly to someone you don't know! I'm exploring what it's like - it feels way more personal than an email, and a part of me hopes that I might get responses because of that. Of course, I wouldn't be that surprised if the one I wrote to Mrs. Macy never even makes it into her hands. She is a busy woman, after all. But that's okay - I'm not attached to outcome with my letter writing - I think of it more as a gift, a small token sent out into the world on its own.
Yesterday afternoon I pulled out the riding tack to take inventory and clean it up. Looks like I'll be able to get up a full set of English tack, as soon as we track down some reins. Whenever it stops raining and I have some free time, I'm going to tack up Lady and see if she remembers how to ride! She's the only one who has any saddle training - if it goes well with her, maybe I'll get to work with some of the others later in the summer. I'd like to put a saddle on Guy - he's a giant Percheron gelding that I have a big crush on. He's an interesting horse - his mom is here too, and he's really attached to her. He'd never had any training until last year, and he's 9 now, so he's quite a bit behind the other horses. He reminds me of an 8 year old kid - big and goofy, but sweet. If I have time for it later in the summer, I think saddle training might be good for him.
Maryrose and I managed to turn and plant quite a bit of the garden earlier in the week, so the rain will be good for that at least! Hopefully when the sun comes back out we'll have plants coming up. I'm a little silly when it comes to gardening - I like to walk by all the time and look for the little sprouts coming up...starting about 8 hours after I plant them! What can I say - I'm an optimist :)
Hope you are all well...
I mailed a few letters at the post office, including a letter to Joanna Macy and a letter to a blogger that I like and sometimes follow named Dan Pearce (Single Dad Laughing). What a weird thing it is to write a letter, particularly to someone you don't know! I'm exploring what it's like - it feels way more personal than an email, and a part of me hopes that I might get responses because of that. Of course, I wouldn't be that surprised if the one I wrote to Mrs. Macy never even makes it into her hands. She is a busy woman, after all. But that's okay - I'm not attached to outcome with my letter writing - I think of it more as a gift, a small token sent out into the world on its own.
Yesterday afternoon I pulled out the riding tack to take inventory and clean it up. Looks like I'll be able to get up a full set of English tack, as soon as we track down some reins. Whenever it stops raining and I have some free time, I'm going to tack up Lady and see if she remembers how to ride! She's the only one who has any saddle training - if it goes well with her, maybe I'll get to work with some of the others later in the summer. I'd like to put a saddle on Guy - he's a giant Percheron gelding that I have a big crush on. He's an interesting horse - his mom is here too, and he's really attached to her. He'd never had any training until last year, and he's 9 now, so he's quite a bit behind the other horses. He reminds me of an 8 year old kid - big and goofy, but sweet. If I have time for it later in the summer, I think saddle training might be good for him.
Maryrose and I managed to turn and plant quite a bit of the garden earlier in the week, so the rain will be good for that at least! Hopefully when the sun comes back out we'll have plants coming up. I'm a little silly when it comes to gardening - I like to walk by all the time and look for the little sprouts coming up...starting about 8 hours after I plant them! What can I say - I'm an optimist :)
Hope you are all well...
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Sheep in Costa Rica
Good morning friends! I'm making breakfast and getting ready go pick dandelions for some dandelion mead I'm planning on making this week. Today, I was thinking about the first time I worked with sheep at a farm in Costa Rica. What a hilarious experience that was! In case you weren't following the blog at that point, here's the link to the story:
Soap and Sheep
You'd think after that experience I would have given up on sheep, but my selective memory totally blocked it out. BZ just reminded me last night :) Remind me to tell this to you in person sometime - I'll act it out and you'll laugh your butt off!
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Photos!
I'm farm-tending today! Lot's of little animal chores, and I'm about to go plant our spring/summer garden. Maryrose turned all the beds yesterday, so hopefully I can get them smooth enough to plant in. Here are a few pictures of the farm...
Friday, May 11, 2012
Driving, sheep, and a Barn Raising!
Well, I feel like I need to write every day here! So much is happening, and I am learning so
much information so fast that I think if I don’t write it down I will forget
what it was like.
Yesterday morning Donn and I did some horse work even though
it was still kind of wet. We cleaned out
the barn, I practiced harnessing, and we took two horses out with a forecart
and the manure spreader. Donn drove them
out to the field, and after the spreader was empty he let me try driving them
back in to get the next load. What a
rush! It was really fun, so we did it a
couple more times :) I really
liked driving, but I realized that I don’t quite have the instinct/quick
reflexes that I have when riding – when one of the horses spooked a little, I
hesitated a few seconds too long because I wasn’t quite sure what to do. In fact, the first time one of the horses
just balked a little (I wasn’t driving) I noticed myself having this weird urge
to bail – just jump off the wagon! That,
of course, is not the appropriate instinct, and my brain quickly realized
that. I could feel the connections
starting to form, so I think with some practice it won’t be hard to get my
reaction time into a good range. The
horses settled after the first time around, and it was smooth, although I also
need some practice driving something so large – it’s a little like driving a
truck and a trailer, which I am not so good at.
It was cold and blustery and sprinkling yesterday. I think I should have brought a few more warm
clothes! In the afternoon we spent some
time indoors and I helped Donn with some stuff in his shop. He does welding and mower repair, and he
showed me how to use the blow torch to heat and bend metal. It was cool, but a little intimidating. I was amused at how much more scared I am of
fire than 1500 lb. horses. I didn’t
watch the welding, but he explained how it worked, and I’ll probably get to
watch at some point once we find another hood.
Last evening I went into the town of Cortland to pick up a
couple of things and explore a bit. I
found a grocery store, library, wine store, and a big Salvation Army. I’m pretty much set for the summer! I went for wine and chocolate and came back
with wine, chocolate, olives, fruit and a pint of Ben and Jerry’s. So much for the no sugar resolution! I’ll just head in that direction and get
there eventually, I suppose…
Today, we got up and did chores and Maryrose gave me a
little lesson in looking at the sheep and pasture to determine when to move
them. It’s going to take some time to
get the intricacies, but I think it’s really interesting to think about. I had a big breakfast that included a slice of
homemade honey-sweetened rhubarb pie (rhubarb from the garden). Donn made it, and I have to say, it was
pretty incredible. Might be the best pie
I’ve ever had. Afterwards, I decided to
go down the road to our Amish neighbors’ house with Donn. They were having a barn raising, and he was
going to help. I was a little nervous –
I didn’t know if it would be okay for me to help, or if I should hang out with
the women, or if I would just be standing around. But I wanted to at least go see it, and I
figured I could walk home if I got bored.
I ended up staying all day.
They let me work right along with the men, and it was absolutely
fascinating. We raised the walls. I carried TONS of boards in from the cutting
area, because that was an easy task that I could see how to do. I started a bunch of nails in siding. I talked to some of the men – a few of them
were really friendly. They fed us a HUGE
lunch. I did try to meet some of the
women once, but they were young, and I clearly made them uncomfortable, so I
just went back to working. By the time
we left, the barn was mostly finished, roof on, doors on. It was probably 3500 sq. ft., and two
stories, although the bottom level was mostly done ahead of time. It is something to behold. I can’t even describe what it was like,
really. Everything just flowed and
worked, and we built this huge amazing structure! It was really beautiful.
Now I’m home and I am beat.
I’m covered in pine pitch from carrying all those boards, my brain is
mush from trying to deduce what was going on all day with the pieces of the
barn and stay alert so I didn’t get a board dropped on my head, and I am physically
exhausted. I might have the energy for a
shower. And another piece of rhubarb
pie. Then I’m going to bed!
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Skidding into Northland
Wow. I'm here! What a whirlwind the last couple of weeks have been, continuing on through today. I arrived yesterday evening, and my hosts, Donn and Maryrose, had dinner waiting for me. We chatted and caught up and then I moved all my stuff into the apartment and unpacked, which only really took a couple of hours. Now I feel pretty settled in, with the exception of a somewhat random supply of foodstuffs. There was some stuff left here by the previous tenant, and Maryrose had partially stocked the fridge, so that's good. I had fried eggs and local organic yogurt for breakfast :) Had sardines and quinoa for lunch, and took some ground pork out of the freezer for dinner. I'm basically starting from scratch, so I'm going to start out gluten-free and sugar-free and see how I do. It will be good to clean out - my diet has been abysmal the past few weeks.
I spent the morning getting oriented with Donn to the farm and then the horses. I had a great time - he is a good teacher and you can tell he is passionate about what he does. We did some ground work with Polly, which I really appreciated as an exercise, and it was a good way to start to get back into my horse groove. Then we drove her up and down the driveway on foot. I think I'm going to like it! Very similar to riding, but you have to use your eyes and external senses a little more to stay aware since you can't feel the horse underneath you. The lines felt natural in my hands and I didn't have to fumble to find the right amount of pressure. It's the kind of work that has the potential to be meditative - you have to stay aware and alert and focused at all times, but you also need to be calm and mellow.
This afternoon I'll be doing some work with Maryrose and the sheep, I think. I'm really excited about the sheep too! We went and saw the ewes and lambs this morning, and they are about the cutest things I've ever seen. I can't wait to just go sit and watch them in my free time. I mean, my eyes can't get enough. The new flock of yearlings is right out in front of my house, so I'm getting to see them a lot too. What else...the horses stayed in last night underneath me, and I liked hearing their sounds. A little robin lives close by and keeps coming by to sit on my porch and check me out. I heard a towhee in the field this morning. It's beautiful here, I mean really beautiful. I can already see that I will be hard to leave, and I only just got here.
More soon! Love, Aura
I spent the morning getting oriented with Donn to the farm and then the horses. I had a great time - he is a good teacher and you can tell he is passionate about what he does. We did some ground work with Polly, which I really appreciated as an exercise, and it was a good way to start to get back into my horse groove. Then we drove her up and down the driveway on foot. I think I'm going to like it! Very similar to riding, but you have to use your eyes and external senses a little more to stay aware since you can't feel the horse underneath you. The lines felt natural in my hands and I didn't have to fumble to find the right amount of pressure. It's the kind of work that has the potential to be meditative - you have to stay aware and alert and focused at all times, but you also need to be calm and mellow.
This afternoon I'll be doing some work with Maryrose and the sheep, I think. I'm really excited about the sheep too! We went and saw the ewes and lambs this morning, and they are about the cutest things I've ever seen. I can't wait to just go sit and watch them in my free time. I mean, my eyes can't get enough. The new flock of yearlings is right out in front of my house, so I'm getting to see them a lot too. What else...the horses stayed in last night underneath me, and I liked hearing their sounds. A little robin lives close by and keeps coming by to sit on my porch and check me out. I heard a towhee in the field this morning. It's beautiful here, I mean really beautiful. I can already see that I will be hard to leave, and I only just got here.
More soon! Love, Aura
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Your Life's Work
Hello, friends. I know it's been quite a while since I've written. I've been BUSY in the garden this summer. I guess I should write a post on that. I'll leave that for the next entry - the short version is that I've been farming all summer, started a local farmer's market, and I've been working my butt off to keep up. It's been great so far, and it's finally starting to wind down as the summer ends. I'm also teaching part-time at Georgia Highlands College, which I am really enjoying. But this post is not about that - tonight I'm thinking about what I've been reading, and I feel like reflecting on that a bit.
I re-read "Conversations with God" this week, for the first time in about 15 years. It was both interesting and enlightening, so I'm continuing on with the second and third books in the series, which I don't believe I've ever read. Although when I read books like this I often feel inspired and captivated, I sometimes have trouble applying what I've read and understood to real life situations, so I'm thinking about how actually practice the things I'm reading. I wanted to share a passage from the first book that particularly struck me, probably because of all the thinking I've been doing the past year about how I'd like to spend my time and how I'd like to 'make a living.' Here it is:
This passage both spoke to me and made me laugh. It's an honest portrayal of how many of us view our world and our jobs, yet we do it without openly stating it in this way. We might work at our jobs for the exact reasons he gives as examples here, but we might also hate them. And feel miserable about them. And talk about how miserable we are. (Or school, or extra commitments, or whatever). The section of the book that this came from is actually about seeking and finding joy, and being happy with your work and your choices. One way to do that is to take responsibility for them - you do have a choice. You always have a choice. So determine why you are choosing as you do, and then be happy about it. Or, if you determine that your choice does not actually reflect who you want to be, then choose again. At least that's what I took from this :)
Also, it's kind of funny how a lot of books I've read this year seem to say the same things. Conversations with God. Man's Search for Himself. A New Earth. Even the Celestine Prophecy, which I haven't read in a while but would like to read again. I have never been a religious person. I've rarely called myself spiritual, for that matter, but I think a lot of the questions that I am asking and exploring this year are of a spiritual nature, and sometimes it feels like the answers are converging. It will be interesting to see where this goes, I suppose. Sometimes I almost feel like I need a support group for this journey - something like a church, but not a church. Unfortunately, my mental associations with churches are mostly bad. In my experience, they tend to be very dogmatic and judgmental, but that view could be biased from my experiences growing up in the Bible belt. I've felt more comfortable reading Buddhist literature or meditating on my own than I ever have in a church. But we shall see...a discussion group, perhaps? My sister just visited a Unitarian church, which I know nothing about. I'm planning on getting the scoop from her. Anyone else have experience with this?
Hope you are all well.
Aura
I re-read "Conversations with God" this week, for the first time in about 15 years. It was both interesting and enlightening, so I'm continuing on with the second and third books in the series, which I don't believe I've ever read. Although when I read books like this I often feel inspired and captivated, I sometimes have trouble applying what I've read and understood to real life situations, so I'm thinking about how actually practice the things I'm reading. I wanted to share a passage from the first book that particularly struck me, probably because of all the thinking I've been doing the past year about how I'd like to spend my time and how I'd like to 'make a living.' Here it is:
"Your life work is a statement of Who You Are. If it is not, then why are you doing it?
Do you imagine that you have to?
You don't have to do anything.
If 'man who supports his family, at all costs, even his own happiness' is Who You Are, then love your work, because it is facilitating your creation of a living statement of Self.
If 'woman who works at job she hates in order to meet responsibilities as she sees them' is Who You Are, then love, love, love your job, for it totally supports your Self image, your Self concept.
Everyone can love everything the moment they understand what they are doing, and why.
No one does anything he doesn't want to do."
--From Conversations With God, Book 1, by Neale Donald Walsch
This passage both spoke to me and made me laugh. It's an honest portrayal of how many of us view our world and our jobs, yet we do it without openly stating it in this way. We might work at our jobs for the exact reasons he gives as examples here, but we might also hate them. And feel miserable about them. And talk about how miserable we are. (Or school, or extra commitments, or whatever). The section of the book that this came from is actually about seeking and finding joy, and being happy with your work and your choices. One way to do that is to take responsibility for them - you do have a choice. You always have a choice. So determine why you are choosing as you do, and then be happy about it. Or, if you determine that your choice does not actually reflect who you want to be, then choose again. At least that's what I took from this :)
Also, it's kind of funny how a lot of books I've read this year seem to say the same things. Conversations with God. Man's Search for Himself. A New Earth. Even the Celestine Prophecy, which I haven't read in a while but would like to read again. I have never been a religious person. I've rarely called myself spiritual, for that matter, but I think a lot of the questions that I am asking and exploring this year are of a spiritual nature, and sometimes it feels like the answers are converging. It will be interesting to see where this goes, I suppose. Sometimes I almost feel like I need a support group for this journey - something like a church, but not a church. Unfortunately, my mental associations with churches are mostly bad. In my experience, they tend to be very dogmatic and judgmental, but that view could be biased from my experiences growing up in the Bible belt. I've felt more comfortable reading Buddhist literature or meditating on my own than I ever have in a church. But we shall see...a discussion group, perhaps? My sister just visited a Unitarian church, which I know nothing about. I'm planning on getting the scoop from her. Anyone else have experience with this?
Hope you are all well.
Aura
Monday, June 14, 2010
Reflections on Life, The Universe, and Everything
Note: I write these days for my own enjoyment, satisfaction, and analysis. Forgive me if I get a little sentimental - this one's a long one. All of these thoughts are subject to change, at any moment, because they are only my interpretations of the world this morning, which seems to be something that is constantly shifting for me these days. No judgement is implied here towards any of my friends, loved ones, or anyone else for their life choices. We all have to find our own way in the world, and live for what we know to be true for ourselves.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As I look back now, I see a world full of contradictions that I've spent my life trying to navigate. No wonder my generation is confused. No wonder we are skeptics, not willing to believe anything until we've seen it with our eyes, performed it with our hands. We grow up being told that we are free, that the world is ours, that our nation is great, that justice prevails. Until for many of us, one day, that world comes crashing down. Sometimes it is a gradual change. For some, they barely notice the transition... They may wake up one day, and wonder where their life went wrong, and why they always feel disappointed. Sometimes it is a drastic event, sometimes we lose our faith. This is how it was for me.
I will probably never understand all of the how's and why's that led me to this point in my life. My long-term memory, notoriously vague, leaves the past before the last few years a rosy glow. I remember being optimistic, cocky almost - knowing I could take the world by the tail and it could be mine. I remember having moments of searing doubt - what was the point? I persevered. I tried not to think about the doubts - maybe they would go away. I convinced myself that if I could just get everything right - if I just followed all the rules, and jumped through all the hoops, and stayed positive, happiness would be mine. That was what I was taught. It had to be true.
Looking back now, from a different state of awareness, contradictions that run deeply through the fabric of our society are painfully obvious. They caught my attention at times, especially as a college student, but I pushed them out of my mind. Why was there so much injustice in the world? Why do people say they want something, but act in a manner completely counter to that objective? I didn't know, but I was trying to focus - if I could just finish school... I spent my academic days pointed and focused in class and in homework. I spent my nights trying not to think about my worries, and trying desperately to fit in, to be happy the way everyone else seemed to be. I drank a lot. If it seemed fake and contrived to me, I drank more. This always seemed to make things more amusing, or at least more bearable. On the outside, I don't know how I looked to other people. I always thought I appeared to be a bright, social, friendly person. Maybe a bit eccentric, maybe a bit opinionated. Maybe too smart, maybe not smart enough. Popular in the sense that I would try just about anything, I could be the life of the party. I was fun and happy and silly, brazen at times. Certainly I wasn't popular with the cheerleader/rich crowd - I felt they could sense that I wasn't one of them - but popular enough with the average, educated, middle-class crew. On the inside, I felt different. I felt like a closet philosopher. I aspired to greatness. I dreamed of science and philosophy and morals and ethics...I dreamed of talking about those things. But I didn't, not usually. Many of my friends weren't interested, and I wasn't sure I could be friends with the types of people who were interested. Those were just dreams to me anyway - I didn't have any experience living by them. I was intimidated by the people who claimed to live by their morals and values alone. And scared of turning out like them. They didn't always follow the rules, and I am nothing if not a rule-follower. They either didn't appear to have any faith in the system, which seemed to be the only thing holding the world together to me at the time, or they had ultimate faith in some system, and proclaimed it as a religious convert would, which seemed slightly suspicious. I tried to walk the line in between, working diligently, partying furiously, imagining the day when everything became clear to me, and I would discover the meaning of life.
Everything changed after college. I wonder how many times that sentence has been written? How many times has it been thought by a person before me? I went to work, and the drudgery and meaninglessness in my everyday tasks filled me with dread. Of course there were good times, meaningful times, wonderful people, good work, satisfaction and pride. Of course those things were there too. But overall, I felt a sense of sadness, of loss. I felt as if I were an actor, playing a part that I must continue to play, until one day I melted away. I listened to the people around me, and at times they seemed beaten down. I would bristle at some imagined injustice, argue over some small point that seemed like an important or ethical issue to me, and the people around me would shrug, and say "That's just how it is" or "I can't wait until I retire...in 15 years." Why? Why were people so miserable, so unmotivated to change their situation? If they indeed were miserable, why didn't they do something different? It was a mystery to me, but a scary one. I began to be suspicious of an unspoken message we are all taught in our culture, the message that says "If you just do X, everything will be better" or "Once you get Y, things will start to turn up." I had always believed that, and X had always been 'finish school and get a good job,' and Y had always been a good salary or a house. But here I was out of school, with a good job, a good salary, a house, and...was I hearing the same message still? Where was the end of this rainbow? When did you have to stop waiting for one more thing, anyway, to be happy NOW? Was I soon going to start thinking that I just needed to get married, buy a new car, get a bigger house, and on and on and on? I began to imagine how a person could work and work, in the bowels of a great bureaucracy, a big system, and never see any change, and begin to feel powerless...until it seemed like there were no options left. I was scared that I might turn into that person. In social situations, I felt disconnected. I had some very real moments, with some very real friends that I love dearly, but I also had many moments where I felt alienated. I felt like screaming, "Can't you see that none of this matters?!" But I couldn't. So I left.
I left my life in high spirits. I saved some money, sold my house, told myself that all my work could pay off now, and that I was off to see the world! High adventure, here I come. I was convinced, in theory, that the material values of western society had nothing for me, so convinced that I gave away and sold everything but what could fit in my car. I had no idea what I was going to do later. I assumed that would "come to me" during some remote scouting adventure in a faraway country. I knew I was interested in something more meaningful, I just didn't know what. Humanitarian work? Field research? The life of an ascetic ex-patriot, holed up in a hut? My values had shifted, but I was still looking at the world through the same old lens. Even though it didn't work the first time, I secretly just thought I needed to try again - find a purpose, commit myself to it, and turn myself into a productive researcher/humanitarian/model citizen/whatever. Take a little vacation along the way.
I had some high adventures, but I wasn't fully prepared for the implications of what I'd done. I met some wonderful people, tested the limits of my own courage, but hauntingly, I felt I saw the same world I'd been running away from, hiding everywhere I went. Somewhere in Costa Rica, in an anonymous hostel full of partyers and surfers, I came to Jesus. I don't mean that literally, of course. I just woke up feeling...different. I wrote about it with fascination at the time - a short entry in the blog, a long one in the journal. What was going on with me? I felt different. I didn't want to drink. I didn't want to create some adventure or go lie on the beach. I began to read a 50 year-old book called "Man's Search for Himself," by Rollo May, that I found in a book exchange, and I stopped wanting to talk to anyone. I became intensely reflective. I felt empowered, but I also felt confused. Eventually, I became deeply depressed. I came home, both to be present for my grandmother's passing, and because I knew I needed a respite. I had lost my faith.
I spent weeks locked inside myself, trying to cope with my grandmother's death, my culture's alien-ness after months of living in the rural part of a foreign country, and my realization that life was not what I had thought. I looked back upon the past year and wondered if I was having some sort of breakdown. I left my job, my home, my friends, my boyfriend, and apparently my faith in the system, and fled, and now that I had stopped fleeing, I looked at myself and asked the question, "Who am I?" I didn't know the answer. I wasn't a computer scientist, at least not at that moment. I wasn't someone's other half, someone's wife or girlfriend. I was living at my parents' house, for goodness sakes, something I hadn't done since I was 17 years old. I was unemployed, something I had never been since I was legally old enough to work - actually since before that (don't tell anyone). Nevermind that I had chosen those things, had planned for them. They still made me feel panicky. The worst was when people asked me what I was doing, what I was going to do next. I wanted to scream "There is no next!" I felt a silent judgement, even though there was probably only curiosity. I felt disapproval when there was probably caring. I sat in silent judgement of myself, unsure of what to do, reading furiously, thinking, searching, grieving. I felt paralyzed by analysis. I had to figure out the answer. The right thing. There had to be one right thing to do, and I felt that I couldn't proceed until I figured out what it was. I felt torn by the contradictions that had always haunted me, which I was now trying to look in the face and stare down. For example, I thought I didn't care about material things, status symbols, income - but I was harshly sitting in judgement of myself for not having a job, for not having an image to define myself, for not being able to explain in a smoothly practiced sentence what my life currently consisted of to anyone who would ask. I felt that one didn't have to have a 'good' job with a 'good' income to be happy or to be a good person, but I felt terribly guilty that I didn't have those things. I was supposed to have it all together. If I wanted to disclaim material possessions, I'd better have a plan and an explanation. I recognized a double-standard that had long haunted me. The standard was this: it's okay for someone else to not be perfect, but not for me. It's okay for someone else to make a mistake. It's okay for someone else to have a mundane job. It's okay for someone else to be confused. It's okay for someone else to be depressed. It's okay not to be perfect. But not for me. My intellectual side believed in what I was doing, believed that I had made good choices and that I was on a good path, but oh - my socially conditioned side was screaming at me. What the hell was I doing? I was breaking all the rules, and I apparently no longer had a plan. I was walking a line between being perfect and being a fuck-up, whatever the hell that meant, and if I wasn't careful, I was going to end up being a fuck-up. That's how I felt. These thoughts screamed at me from a place I didn't even know about inside me. I didn't even believe there was such a thing as being a fuck-up, did I? Who the hell was this person inside of me? I began to think that maybe I wasn't so much afraid of what other people would think, I was afraid of what I would think.
They say that time heals. Well, it definitely smooths the rough edges of things, for me anyway. I think I already mentioned that - pretty soon this will all be just a rosy glow for me ;) I gradually came back to the world of the living. I found a therapist, a yogi and a social work student. I found a doctor. I reached out to my friends. I practiced yoga. I worked in the garden, growing food and eating it, and watching bugs crawl everywhere. I thought about life a lot, and the meaning of it, and the interactions between living things. I decided to try to be honest with myself of above all else. I decided to explore my life, my insecurities, the reasons I did what I did, the reasons that I might want to distract myself from the reality of my life. I realized how intensely satisfying it could be to do something simple, really simple, and just take pleasure in knowing the power of your own hands, and the work that must go into growing a tomato, for example, or building a fence. I thought about how rare those experiences are for many people I know - experiences that directly translate the force of their labor and work into something concrete that they can use, eat, or appreciate. I thought that it was no wonder it was easy to feel disconnected - indeed, it appeared to me to be hard to find ways to feel connected in our society, where it is so foreign to know the lifecycle of any object or thing in your daily life.
I eventually decided that nothing matters - there is no ultimate truth. There is only your human experience of life. Although at first, this realization filled me with dread, now I speak it as a kind of liberation. As a freedom song. If nothing really matters, then I can do whatever I want to. I can live, simply to enjoy daily life as best I can. I can be a farmer or a teacher or a preacher or a blog writer or a surf bum or a computer programmer or an untalented musician...without judgement. I'm not suggesting a life of unfettered hedonism, at least not for me. I like to think of myself as a principled person. To me, the laws of life seem simple. Take only what you need. Try not to infringe on other organisms' right to live. Live simply. If you don't believe in something, don't do it. If you don't like something, don't complain about it, do something about it or do something different. Try to be aware of the impacts of your decisions, every day, and take responsibility for them.
I'm sure there are more of these laws. I know they're not obvious, nor easy to follow. I know I will fail sometimes. I know I will keep trying anyway. It is one thing to say these things and to believe them to be true, and it is another to apply them to your life. It is hard work to undo years of conditioning, years of training and judgement. The last rule might be the hardest, for us, in our society. We make it so easy to not take responsibility for our actions...and so hard to be aware of their impacts. The industrial system is so huge, so complex, that it seems as if a single person could never understand the impacts of the things they do every day. Food is an easy example, and one that is close to my heart these days. How the hell am I to know what went into producing my box of cereal and putting it on the shelf at Kroger for me to buy? Even if I could know, I can't influence any of it. Even if I shudder at the way factory farmed animals are treated, how am I to change it? These are all valid questions, and they can be extended to any area of life. They can lead to disabling frustration. You sometimes feel like you have to just forget about these types of questions in order to simply live your life, or condemn yourself to a life of misery and guilt for the role you play in everyday tragedies. Fortunately, there are other options. Like everything else in life, sometimes seeing that you have options is simply a matter of changing or widening your viewpoint. For me, the best option right now appears to be to try to opt-out. I will choose to opt-out of systems that I can't influence and can't know about, whenever possible. I will not work for a company when I can't know it's purpose and see evidence that it is working towards that purpose, and not towards its opposite. I will not buy and eat food, if I don't know where it came from, how it was grown or raised, what went into getting it to my table. I will try to find sources for things in my life that I can know about, that are close to my home, that are produced by people I can meet and know and trust. I will be compassionate towards myself; I will not feel discouraged if I make a mistake or if I cannot always uphold these ideals. I will not judge myself or my friends based on these standards, I will simply try my best to do what is right. I will trust my judgement, and use it to question what people tell me, not in a paranoid way, but in an open way. Does what they say ring true? I will live my life everyday as if it matters, as if the people around me matter, as if I care what happens to the world, for that is how I wish the world would be, and my behavior is the only thing I can surely influence. Mahatma Gandhi once said "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." I think I understand this directive now, and I am willing to try to be that change.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As I look back now, I see a world full of contradictions that I've spent my life trying to navigate. No wonder my generation is confused. No wonder we are skeptics, not willing to believe anything until we've seen it with our eyes, performed it with our hands. We grow up being told that we are free, that the world is ours, that our nation is great, that justice prevails. Until for many of us, one day, that world comes crashing down. Sometimes it is a gradual change. For some, they barely notice the transition... They may wake up one day, and wonder where their life went wrong, and why they always feel disappointed. Sometimes it is a drastic event, sometimes we lose our faith. This is how it was for me.
I will probably never understand all of the how's and why's that led me to this point in my life. My long-term memory, notoriously vague, leaves the past before the last few years a rosy glow. I remember being optimistic, cocky almost - knowing I could take the world by the tail and it could be mine. I remember having moments of searing doubt - what was the point? I persevered. I tried not to think about the doubts - maybe they would go away. I convinced myself that if I could just get everything right - if I just followed all the rules, and jumped through all the hoops, and stayed positive, happiness would be mine. That was what I was taught. It had to be true.
Looking back now, from a different state of awareness, contradictions that run deeply through the fabric of our society are painfully obvious. They caught my attention at times, especially as a college student, but I pushed them out of my mind. Why was there so much injustice in the world? Why do people say they want something, but act in a manner completely counter to that objective? I didn't know, but I was trying to focus - if I could just finish school... I spent my academic days pointed and focused in class and in homework. I spent my nights trying not to think about my worries, and trying desperately to fit in, to be happy the way everyone else seemed to be. I drank a lot. If it seemed fake and contrived to me, I drank more. This always seemed to make things more amusing, or at least more bearable. On the outside, I don't know how I looked to other people. I always thought I appeared to be a bright, social, friendly person. Maybe a bit eccentric, maybe a bit opinionated. Maybe too smart, maybe not smart enough. Popular in the sense that I would try just about anything, I could be the life of the party. I was fun and happy and silly, brazen at times. Certainly I wasn't popular with the cheerleader/rich crowd - I felt they could sense that I wasn't one of them - but popular enough with the average, educated, middle-class crew. On the inside, I felt different. I felt like a closet philosopher. I aspired to greatness. I dreamed of science and philosophy and morals and ethics...I dreamed of talking about those things. But I didn't, not usually. Many of my friends weren't interested, and I wasn't sure I could be friends with the types of people who were interested. Those were just dreams to me anyway - I didn't have any experience living by them. I was intimidated by the people who claimed to live by their morals and values alone. And scared of turning out like them. They didn't always follow the rules, and I am nothing if not a rule-follower. They either didn't appear to have any faith in the system, which seemed to be the only thing holding the world together to me at the time, or they had ultimate faith in some system, and proclaimed it as a religious convert would, which seemed slightly suspicious. I tried to walk the line in between, working diligently, partying furiously, imagining the day when everything became clear to me, and I would discover the meaning of life.
Everything changed after college. I wonder how many times that sentence has been written? How many times has it been thought by a person before me? I went to work, and the drudgery and meaninglessness in my everyday tasks filled me with dread. Of course there were good times, meaningful times, wonderful people, good work, satisfaction and pride. Of course those things were there too. But overall, I felt a sense of sadness, of loss. I felt as if I were an actor, playing a part that I must continue to play, until one day I melted away. I listened to the people around me, and at times they seemed beaten down. I would bristle at some imagined injustice, argue over some small point that seemed like an important or ethical issue to me, and the people around me would shrug, and say "That's just how it is" or "I can't wait until I retire...in 15 years." Why? Why were people so miserable, so unmotivated to change their situation? If they indeed were miserable, why didn't they do something different? It was a mystery to me, but a scary one. I began to be suspicious of an unspoken message we are all taught in our culture, the message that says "If you just do X, everything will be better" or "Once you get Y, things will start to turn up." I had always believed that, and X had always been 'finish school and get a good job,' and Y had always been a good salary or a house. But here I was out of school, with a good job, a good salary, a house, and...was I hearing the same message still? Where was the end of this rainbow? When did you have to stop waiting for one more thing, anyway, to be happy NOW? Was I soon going to start thinking that I just needed to get married, buy a new car, get a bigger house, and on and on and on? I began to imagine how a person could work and work, in the bowels of a great bureaucracy, a big system, and never see any change, and begin to feel powerless...until it seemed like there were no options left. I was scared that I might turn into that person. In social situations, I felt disconnected. I had some very real moments, with some very real friends that I love dearly, but I also had many moments where I felt alienated. I felt like screaming, "Can't you see that none of this matters?!" But I couldn't. So I left.
I left my life in high spirits. I saved some money, sold my house, told myself that all my work could pay off now, and that I was off to see the world! High adventure, here I come. I was convinced, in theory, that the material values of western society had nothing for me, so convinced that I gave away and sold everything but what could fit in my car. I had no idea what I was going to do later. I assumed that would "come to me" during some remote scouting adventure in a faraway country. I knew I was interested in something more meaningful, I just didn't know what. Humanitarian work? Field research? The life of an ascetic ex-patriot, holed up in a hut? My values had shifted, but I was still looking at the world through the same old lens. Even though it didn't work the first time, I secretly just thought I needed to try again - find a purpose, commit myself to it, and turn myself into a productive researcher/humanitarian/model citizen/whatever. Take a little vacation along the way.
I had some high adventures, but I wasn't fully prepared for the implications of what I'd done. I met some wonderful people, tested the limits of my own courage, but hauntingly, I felt I saw the same world I'd been running away from, hiding everywhere I went. Somewhere in Costa Rica, in an anonymous hostel full of partyers and surfers, I came to Jesus. I don't mean that literally, of course. I just woke up feeling...different. I wrote about it with fascination at the time - a short entry in the blog, a long one in the journal. What was going on with me? I felt different. I didn't want to drink. I didn't want to create some adventure or go lie on the beach. I began to read a 50 year-old book called "Man's Search for Himself," by Rollo May, that I found in a book exchange, and I stopped wanting to talk to anyone. I became intensely reflective. I felt empowered, but I also felt confused. Eventually, I became deeply depressed. I came home, both to be present for my grandmother's passing, and because I knew I needed a respite. I had lost my faith.
I spent weeks locked inside myself, trying to cope with my grandmother's death, my culture's alien-ness after months of living in the rural part of a foreign country, and my realization that life was not what I had thought. I looked back upon the past year and wondered if I was having some sort of breakdown. I left my job, my home, my friends, my boyfriend, and apparently my faith in the system, and fled, and now that I had stopped fleeing, I looked at myself and asked the question, "Who am I?" I didn't know the answer. I wasn't a computer scientist, at least not at that moment. I wasn't someone's other half, someone's wife or girlfriend. I was living at my parents' house, for goodness sakes, something I hadn't done since I was 17 years old. I was unemployed, something I had never been since I was legally old enough to work - actually since before that (don't tell anyone). Nevermind that I had chosen those things, had planned for them. They still made me feel panicky. The worst was when people asked me what I was doing, what I was going to do next. I wanted to scream "There is no next!" I felt a silent judgement, even though there was probably only curiosity. I felt disapproval when there was probably caring. I sat in silent judgement of myself, unsure of what to do, reading furiously, thinking, searching, grieving. I felt paralyzed by analysis. I had to figure out the answer. The right thing. There had to be one right thing to do, and I felt that I couldn't proceed until I figured out what it was. I felt torn by the contradictions that had always haunted me, which I was now trying to look in the face and stare down. For example, I thought I didn't care about material things, status symbols, income - but I was harshly sitting in judgement of myself for not having a job, for not having an image to define myself, for not being able to explain in a smoothly practiced sentence what my life currently consisted of to anyone who would ask. I felt that one didn't have to have a 'good' job with a 'good' income to be happy or to be a good person, but I felt terribly guilty that I didn't have those things. I was supposed to have it all together. If I wanted to disclaim material possessions, I'd better have a plan and an explanation. I recognized a double-standard that had long haunted me. The standard was this: it's okay for someone else to not be perfect, but not for me. It's okay for someone else to make a mistake. It's okay for someone else to have a mundane job. It's okay for someone else to be confused. It's okay for someone else to be depressed. It's okay not to be perfect. But not for me. My intellectual side believed in what I was doing, believed that I had made good choices and that I was on a good path, but oh - my socially conditioned side was screaming at me. What the hell was I doing? I was breaking all the rules, and I apparently no longer had a plan. I was walking a line between being perfect and being a fuck-up, whatever the hell that meant, and if I wasn't careful, I was going to end up being a fuck-up. That's how I felt. These thoughts screamed at me from a place I didn't even know about inside me. I didn't even believe there was such a thing as being a fuck-up, did I? Who the hell was this person inside of me? I began to think that maybe I wasn't so much afraid of what other people would think, I was afraid of what I would think.
They say that time heals. Well, it definitely smooths the rough edges of things, for me anyway. I think I already mentioned that - pretty soon this will all be just a rosy glow for me ;) I gradually came back to the world of the living. I found a therapist, a yogi and a social work student. I found a doctor. I reached out to my friends. I practiced yoga. I worked in the garden, growing food and eating it, and watching bugs crawl everywhere. I thought about life a lot, and the meaning of it, and the interactions between living things. I decided to try to be honest with myself of above all else. I decided to explore my life, my insecurities, the reasons I did what I did, the reasons that I might want to distract myself from the reality of my life. I realized how intensely satisfying it could be to do something simple, really simple, and just take pleasure in knowing the power of your own hands, and the work that must go into growing a tomato, for example, or building a fence. I thought about how rare those experiences are for many people I know - experiences that directly translate the force of their labor and work into something concrete that they can use, eat, or appreciate. I thought that it was no wonder it was easy to feel disconnected - indeed, it appeared to me to be hard to find ways to feel connected in our society, where it is so foreign to know the lifecycle of any object or thing in your daily life.
I eventually decided that nothing matters - there is no ultimate truth. There is only your human experience of life. Although at first, this realization filled me with dread, now I speak it as a kind of liberation. As a freedom song. If nothing really matters, then I can do whatever I want to. I can live, simply to enjoy daily life as best I can. I can be a farmer or a teacher or a preacher or a blog writer or a surf bum or a computer programmer or an untalented musician...without judgement. I'm not suggesting a life of unfettered hedonism, at least not for me. I like to think of myself as a principled person. To me, the laws of life seem simple. Take only what you need. Try not to infringe on other organisms' right to live. Live simply. If you don't believe in something, don't do it. If you don't like something, don't complain about it, do something about it or do something different. Try to be aware of the impacts of your decisions, every day, and take responsibility for them.
I'm sure there are more of these laws. I know they're not obvious, nor easy to follow. I know I will fail sometimes. I know I will keep trying anyway. It is one thing to say these things and to believe them to be true, and it is another to apply them to your life. It is hard work to undo years of conditioning, years of training and judgement. The last rule might be the hardest, for us, in our society. We make it so easy to not take responsibility for our actions...and so hard to be aware of their impacts. The industrial system is so huge, so complex, that it seems as if a single person could never understand the impacts of the things they do every day. Food is an easy example, and one that is close to my heart these days. How the hell am I to know what went into producing my box of cereal and putting it on the shelf at Kroger for me to buy? Even if I could know, I can't influence any of it. Even if I shudder at the way factory farmed animals are treated, how am I to change it? These are all valid questions, and they can be extended to any area of life. They can lead to disabling frustration. You sometimes feel like you have to just forget about these types of questions in order to simply live your life, or condemn yourself to a life of misery and guilt for the role you play in everyday tragedies. Fortunately, there are other options. Like everything else in life, sometimes seeing that you have options is simply a matter of changing or widening your viewpoint. For me, the best option right now appears to be to try to opt-out. I will choose to opt-out of systems that I can't influence and can't know about, whenever possible. I will not work for a company when I can't know it's purpose and see evidence that it is working towards that purpose, and not towards its opposite. I will not buy and eat food, if I don't know where it came from, how it was grown or raised, what went into getting it to my table. I will try to find sources for things in my life that I can know about, that are close to my home, that are produced by people I can meet and know and trust. I will be compassionate towards myself; I will not feel discouraged if I make a mistake or if I cannot always uphold these ideals. I will not judge myself or my friends based on these standards, I will simply try my best to do what is right. I will trust my judgement, and use it to question what people tell me, not in a paranoid way, but in an open way. Does what they say ring true? I will live my life everyday as if it matters, as if the people around me matter, as if I care what happens to the world, for that is how I wish the world would be, and my behavior is the only thing I can surely influence. Mahatma Gandhi once said "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." I think I understand this directive now, and I am willing to try to be that change.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Georgia...
Well, friends, I’m back. For those of you who I have shamelessly not called or emailed recently, I'm sorry! I had to hibernate a bit, but I'm back. I’ll try to sum up the past month or two. I came home in December for Christmas and to spend time with my grandmother, who has had advancing cancer for the last few years. Her health began to get worse shortly before the holidays, and she was staying in the bed by the time I got home. To put it simply, I decided to stay indefinitely when I realized how bad things were. My mom and aunt had been staying with my Mimi full time, and my sister was starting to spend most of her time at her house too, and I didn’t exactly feel like jetting off to play in Guatemala with all of my family here dealing with such serious issues, so I stayed to help. We cared for Mimi in her house until she passed away on January 15th. Then there was the funeral, endless rounds of family and friends and loved ones, and I finally ended up back here at my parents place to re-center.
During all of that, I was having a lot of trouble adjusting to life back home. I experienced a lot of different things while I was traveling and went through some major personal changes. I spent a lot of time by myself, some of it pleasant and some of it more difficult, while I was on the road. Coming home to such a chaotic and emotional scene was hard – I felt really overwhelmed by all of the noise and activity, and at the same time, really isolated. I also had to deal with my grief – I knew that my Mimi was going to die and that it was good and right for that to happen – she was in a lot of pain and was ready to go – but knowing that was different from watching her struggle and being with her while she died.
So I have been trying to relax and get my mind right again, and thinking a lot about what I want to do next. The original plan was to go to Columbia and start working my way around South America. But, a few nagging things were making me question that course of action, so I decided to stay still and think for a bit before I rushed off. I came to a few conclusions.
1. I was having a lot of trouble dealing with the past 9 months’ changes. I hadn’t really let myself think about it too much, honestly, but I seem to have been/be having a bit of a personal crisis adjusting to all of these changes. Namely, I left my job. Maybe my career. I left my house. I left my friends. I left a serious relationship. And I did it all casually, happily – no big deal! It didn’t occur to me that it might be hard, that it might cause me to question a lot of big things, like my identity, and what I place value on, and what I value about myself. Silly me! That was a tough one, and I’m sure it’s not over, but I think I’m on the downhill side. For now. It seems like these are probably life-long questions, but anyway…
2. I realized (and admitted to myself) I am not going to find utopia bouncing around in the world. I didn’t really think I would, but I have to admit that I had a glimmer of hope. And I found some really good things, some interesting things, and some instructional things. But not utopia. All of the same problems, dramas, and issues are being enacted in every place that I visited just like they are here in Georgia and in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Different details, although some people are handling them better than others. Same issues. Guess I had to really experience that for myself.
3. I really want to do something real. I have always felt that so much of life (mine, my friends’, the people’s around me) is made up. Maybe that’s not the best way to describe it, but I can’t come up with a better term. Maybe like a lot of our everyday lives are contrived. We’re all driving around, running back and forth, filling up our schedules with scheduled work and play and TV and sleep and wishing we had more time that we would surely fill up with more things that we don’t really find fulfilling. In our social time we talk about superficial things. Lives of people we’ve never met, global and national issues that are important, but lots of times things that we don’t directly experience or feel like we can influence. I’ve surely experienced this – don’t know about you guys. This is not meant to be a political statement, just a statement I’ve felt really disconnected. And that’s something that I haven’t felt as much recently, especially when I’ve been here (or in other countries) working with a team of people on something real that we were all going to enjoy the benefits of, like working in a garden. That’s real, and it’s fun. It’s work, and it’s play. I’m enjoying where that train of thought is taking me. I'm currently looking into different types of sustainable working communities, like ecovillages. I think I may focus on visiting and working in these kinds of places when I leave again.
4. I still want to travel, but maybe not alone. And probably with more of a plan. Haphazard can be fun, but it gets old when you realize that you are just bouncing along a tourist trail, made for tourists like you. Lots of people speak English, and you’re more likely to have a conversation with a Californian than a native person in the country you’re in. And while I really did enjoy being by myself sometimes and I really did appreciate the time for self-reflection, I was less adventurous in wandering off that tourist trail than I would have been if I had a partner. So, I’m going to plan a little more this time. I still have my little travel nest egg, and I plan to use it, but I’m not in any hurry. I think I’d value a little more planning and maybe some companionship over the first strategy. There are some amazing places I want to see in South America, but I’m not in a big hurry anymore.
Being in a hurry is the one thing that’s been the hardest for me to let go of. Even though I didn’t have a schedule, I was constantly asking myself what I was going to do next. This even applies long term – I’ve been thinking (partly sub-consciously) that I can go ahead and finish up this ‘year of travel’ and try to do it really efficiently so I can see everything I want to and oh-by-the-way while I’m traveling I better be figuring out what I’m going to do NEXT because everyone keeps asking and…on and on and on. And not to get too new-agey, but I’m starting to actually understand that there is no next. It’s all right now. So, I’m going to stay here for now, do some planning for the next steps in my trip, and work on some projects that I think are fun and rewarding. And travel again when I decide where I want to go most and what I want to do there. There’s no reason that I can’t do fun and rewarding projects while I’m traveling, and I did experience some of that, but in my experience, it wasn’t intrinsically ‘better’ than doing those things here. It also takes a little more planning up front to find that kind of arrangement while you're traveling, and here I have the extra benefit of having network of people that I know and love, and a place to stay – always a plus :)
I’ve had a lot of conversations with different people over the past few months (and years, really) about the various problems in the world and our frustrations, mainly centered around not knowing what to do to make things better and feeling powerless to do anything at all. I’ve gained a lot of new perspective and read a ton of interesting books on those feelings and issues over the last 9 months or so, so if you’re interested, feel free to shoot me an email – I’ve got everything from economy to the environment to clinical psychology on my bookshelf right now. I can’t say that I have any world-saving advice or ‘the solution,’ but I’ve gotten a lot of satisfaction out of finding ways to connect with something concrete in the world, and I think one of the easiest ways to do that is through food. So if I have any simple advice (and if anyone is even interested in that advice) it’s this – in some ways, your whole life is about nourishing your body and that of your family. That’s what you go to work for (along with paying for your house, water, and various toys, etc). If you can find a way to connect with where your food comes from, you can get a lot of satisfaction out of that connection and ‘do something’ without having to make any huge life change or feeling like you need to save the world. So find out if there is a Community Sponsored Agriculture (CSA) farm near you. Plant a garden. Invite your neighbors (and friends!) over for a potluck. That’s all. Love you all.
Aura
During all of that, I was having a lot of trouble adjusting to life back home. I experienced a lot of different things while I was traveling and went through some major personal changes. I spent a lot of time by myself, some of it pleasant and some of it more difficult, while I was on the road. Coming home to such a chaotic and emotional scene was hard – I felt really overwhelmed by all of the noise and activity, and at the same time, really isolated. I also had to deal with my grief – I knew that my Mimi was going to die and that it was good and right for that to happen – she was in a lot of pain and was ready to go – but knowing that was different from watching her struggle and being with her while she died.
So I have been trying to relax and get my mind right again, and thinking a lot about what I want to do next. The original plan was to go to Columbia and start working my way around South America. But, a few nagging things were making me question that course of action, so I decided to stay still and think for a bit before I rushed off. I came to a few conclusions.
1. I was having a lot of trouble dealing with the past 9 months’ changes. I hadn’t really let myself think about it too much, honestly, but I seem to have been/be having a bit of a personal crisis adjusting to all of these changes. Namely, I left my job. Maybe my career. I left my house. I left my friends. I left a serious relationship. And I did it all casually, happily – no big deal! It didn’t occur to me that it might be hard, that it might cause me to question a lot of big things, like my identity, and what I place value on, and what I value about myself. Silly me! That was a tough one, and I’m sure it’s not over, but I think I’m on the downhill side. For now. It seems like these are probably life-long questions, but anyway…
2. I realized (and admitted to myself) I am not going to find utopia bouncing around in the world. I didn’t really think I would, but I have to admit that I had a glimmer of hope. And I found some really good things, some interesting things, and some instructional things. But not utopia. All of the same problems, dramas, and issues are being enacted in every place that I visited just like they are here in Georgia and in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Different details, although some people are handling them better than others. Same issues. Guess I had to really experience that for myself.
3. I really want to do something real. I have always felt that so much of life (mine, my friends’, the people’s around me) is made up. Maybe that’s not the best way to describe it, but I can’t come up with a better term. Maybe like a lot of our everyday lives are contrived. We’re all driving around, running back and forth, filling up our schedules with scheduled work and play and TV and sleep and wishing we had more time that we would surely fill up with more things that we don’t really find fulfilling. In our social time we talk about superficial things. Lives of people we’ve never met, global and national issues that are important, but lots of times things that we don’t directly experience or feel like we can influence. I’ve surely experienced this – don’t know about you guys. This is not meant to be a political statement, just a statement I’ve felt really disconnected. And that’s something that I haven’t felt as much recently, especially when I’ve been here (or in other countries) working with a team of people on something real that we were all going to enjoy the benefits of, like working in a garden. That’s real, and it’s fun. It’s work, and it’s play. I’m enjoying where that train of thought is taking me. I'm currently looking into different types of sustainable working communities, like ecovillages. I think I may focus on visiting and working in these kinds of places when I leave again.
4. I still want to travel, but maybe not alone. And probably with more of a plan. Haphazard can be fun, but it gets old when you realize that you are just bouncing along a tourist trail, made for tourists like you. Lots of people speak English, and you’re more likely to have a conversation with a Californian than a native person in the country you’re in. And while I really did enjoy being by myself sometimes and I really did appreciate the time for self-reflection, I was less adventurous in wandering off that tourist trail than I would have been if I had a partner. So, I’m going to plan a little more this time. I still have my little travel nest egg, and I plan to use it, but I’m not in any hurry. I think I’d value a little more planning and maybe some companionship over the first strategy. There are some amazing places I want to see in South America, but I’m not in a big hurry anymore.
Being in a hurry is the one thing that’s been the hardest for me to let go of. Even though I didn’t have a schedule, I was constantly asking myself what I was going to do next. This even applies long term – I’ve been thinking (partly sub-consciously) that I can go ahead and finish up this ‘year of travel’ and try to do it really efficiently so I can see everything I want to and oh-by-the-way while I’m traveling I better be figuring out what I’m going to do NEXT because everyone keeps asking and…on and on and on. And not to get too new-agey, but I’m starting to actually understand that there is no next. It’s all right now. So, I’m going to stay here for now, do some planning for the next steps in my trip, and work on some projects that I think are fun and rewarding. And travel again when I decide where I want to go most and what I want to do there. There’s no reason that I can’t do fun and rewarding projects while I’m traveling, and I did experience some of that, but in my experience, it wasn’t intrinsically ‘better’ than doing those things here. It also takes a little more planning up front to find that kind of arrangement while you're traveling, and here I have the extra benefit of having network of people that I know and love, and a place to stay – always a plus :)
I’ve had a lot of conversations with different people over the past few months (and years, really) about the various problems in the world and our frustrations, mainly centered around not knowing what to do to make things better and feeling powerless to do anything at all. I’ve gained a lot of new perspective and read a ton of interesting books on those feelings and issues over the last 9 months or so, so if you’re interested, feel free to shoot me an email – I’ve got everything from economy to the environment to clinical psychology on my bookshelf right now. I can’t say that I have any world-saving advice or ‘the solution,’ but I’ve gotten a lot of satisfaction out of finding ways to connect with something concrete in the world, and I think one of the easiest ways to do that is through food. So if I have any simple advice (and if anyone is even interested in that advice) it’s this – in some ways, your whole life is about nourishing your body and that of your family. That’s what you go to work for (along with paying for your house, water, and various toys, etc). If you can find a way to connect with where your food comes from, you can get a lot of satisfaction out of that connection and ‘do something’ without having to make any huge life change or feeling like you need to save the world. So find out if there is a Community Sponsored Agriculture (CSA) farm near you. Plant a garden. Invite your neighbors (and friends!) over for a potluck. That’s all. Love you all.
Aura
Saturday, December 12, 2009
A little bit of introspection, and on to Granada
Hello!
Well, sorry for the depressing post earlier this week, and thanks for the words of encouragement. I am learning a lot on this trip, and much of it is about myself. I used to get a lot of pleasure out of anything social, including going out with tons of new people and talking a lot, even if it was about nothing. These days, rather unexpectedly, I´m finding that I don´t automatically get pleasure from social activity. I still like to be around people, but I´m spending more time alone than usual. I no longer really find it satisfying to talk and drink just to talk and drink, to fill the space, you could say. And there is a lot of that to be found on the Gringo Trail in Central America, not surprisingly. I´m not sure where the new attitude or awareness came from, but I´m sure it has something to do with throwing myself into a situation where I don´t know anyone, and even the culture is unfamiliar. It´s easy to segue into questioning/reevaluating everything... It´s a little hard to adjust to these emerging feelings, but I think overall it´s a good thing for me. I´m learning how to just be with myself, more than usual anyway, and I´m valuing the experiences I have with genuine people more. Some days are better than others, but overall I feel very positive and strong.
I stayed at the organic farm and found a really nice group of people there. After a few days of getting accustomed to the neighborhood, bus schedule, local businesses, etc, things were a lot better, especially with the local people. There ended up being several musicians in my hostel, so that was fun. We had a couple of jam sessions with a ukelele and two guitars...I really wished I had my mandolin. I took a capoeira class on the beach. That was interesting... Fun, but I don´t think it´s my passion in life! I also went horseback riding with one of the French girls. That was great. The horses here are trained a little differently. I haven´t asked anyone for the details, but the most distinctive thing I noticed was their trot. Visually and while you´re riding, it´s noticeably different. The horses we rode had a really slow, smooth trot - virtually no bounce at all. At the farm, I slept in my hammock for 6 days. It was awesome, cool and comfortable (thanks, SNL friends :) ). I stayed in a dorm my last night, and I missed the fresh air.
Now I am in Granada, and I have a feeling I am going to like this city. It´s small, with old colonial style architecture, and a really busy main street full of markets. I have a closet obsession (okay, not so closet) with markets. To top it off, there´s another city a 30 minute bus ride away that´s known as the city for craft markets. Yay! Supposedly, they also have several music stores, so I´m going to see what kind of interesting instruments I can find. Tomorrow, I´m going to go for a run in the morning and try to get oriented here. In fact, I´ll probably just spend the whole day wandering around. Then on Monday, I´ll probably go to Masaya, the craft-music-rocking chair town. I´m really excited! On Thursday, I head to the airport for my flight home, which is at 2:00 in the morning on Friday. Kind of a pain, but oh well. I´ll let you know how the craft scene is...
Well, sorry for the depressing post earlier this week, and thanks for the words of encouragement. I am learning a lot on this trip, and much of it is about myself. I used to get a lot of pleasure out of anything social, including going out with tons of new people and talking a lot, even if it was about nothing. These days, rather unexpectedly, I´m finding that I don´t automatically get pleasure from social activity. I still like to be around people, but I´m spending more time alone than usual. I no longer really find it satisfying to talk and drink just to talk and drink, to fill the space, you could say. And there is a lot of that to be found on the Gringo Trail in Central America, not surprisingly. I´m not sure where the new attitude or awareness came from, but I´m sure it has something to do with throwing myself into a situation where I don´t know anyone, and even the culture is unfamiliar. It´s easy to segue into questioning/reevaluating everything... It´s a little hard to adjust to these emerging feelings, but I think overall it´s a good thing for me. I´m learning how to just be with myself, more than usual anyway, and I´m valuing the experiences I have with genuine people more. Some days are better than others, but overall I feel very positive and strong.
I stayed at the organic farm and found a really nice group of people there. After a few days of getting accustomed to the neighborhood, bus schedule, local businesses, etc, things were a lot better, especially with the local people. There ended up being several musicians in my hostel, so that was fun. We had a couple of jam sessions with a ukelele and two guitars...I really wished I had my mandolin. I took a capoeira class on the beach. That was interesting... Fun, but I don´t think it´s my passion in life! I also went horseback riding with one of the French girls. That was great. The horses here are trained a little differently. I haven´t asked anyone for the details, but the most distinctive thing I noticed was their trot. Visually and while you´re riding, it´s noticeably different. The horses we rode had a really slow, smooth trot - virtually no bounce at all. At the farm, I slept in my hammock for 6 days. It was awesome, cool and comfortable (thanks, SNL friends :) ). I stayed in a dorm my last night, and I missed the fresh air.
Now I am in Granada, and I have a feeling I am going to like this city. It´s small, with old colonial style architecture, and a really busy main street full of markets. I have a closet obsession (okay, not so closet) with markets. To top it off, there´s another city a 30 minute bus ride away that´s known as the city for craft markets. Yay! Supposedly, they also have several music stores, so I´m going to see what kind of interesting instruments I can find. Tomorrow, I´m going to go for a run in the morning and try to get oriented here. In fact, I´ll probably just spend the whole day wandering around. Then on Monday, I´ll probably go to Masaya, the craft-music-rocking chair town. I´m really excited! On Thursday, I head to the airport for my flight home, which is at 2:00 in the morning on Friday. Kind of a pain, but oh well. I´ll let you know how the craft scene is...
Monday, December 7, 2009
Beach to present, and beyond!
The good...
Well, I´m a bit behind on blogging. It´s about an hour to get to internet where I am now, so I haven´t been online much. The beach was very nice and relaxing overall, although the tourists were starting to come in droves as I was leaving. It´s the beginning of the high season, so it will get a lot busier. I felt like I really got to relax there, and I gained some new perspective. I read some really good books. I stopped drinking beer :) I spent a lot of time with my Argentinean friends, who are some of the most genuine people I´ve met traveling, and let me stay with them for a week. And - my Spanish is really good these days. Not perfect of course, but I can communicate generally without any trouble. When people ask me if I speak Spanish these days, I say yes (instead of ´kind of´). Strangely, I keep getting asked (by several locals and 2 Germans) if I´m from Germany. I don´t think I have a German accent in Spanish! Either way, I take it as a good sign. Maybe, at the very least, it means I don´t have a screamingly obvious American accent :)
Thanksgiving was a huge success. I started cooking the night before, making cold salads and stuff, and cooked all day on Thanksgiving. We had about 19 people show up - 3 Americans and others from France, Belgium, Italy, Costa Rica, Argentina, Israel, England, Holland, and another little bitty country that I can´t remember the name of! There was plenty of food - I´ve never cooked for so many people in my life. Everything went really smoothly too, until about 5 p.m. I had been running back and forth from the house to the grocery store to a neighbor´s (because she had an oven), and about 5 or 5:30, she got home and ran down to tell me that the oven was out of gas. I had stuffed chickens inside it at that point and two casserole dishes waiting to go next. Eek! Fortunately, the Belgians own a bakery, so two of the guys left, balancing the chickens and the casseroles on their laps on a four-wheeler, to stick them in the oven at the bakery. What a trip :) They made it back safely and we all ate and drank wine. Overall, it was probably my most interesting Thanksgiving yet. Everyone thought it was really cool - a lot of them commented that the only things they new about Thanksgiving were from the movies. After that, I hung out for a few more days and then headed north. I did my first payed work before I left the beach though - I worked in a surf shop on the beach for 3 hours. They paid me $6. It was actually my friend Noe´s job, but she couldn´t go that afternoon, so I went for her. Crazy, huh? I don´t know of anywhere else in the world where you can send a friend to work for you if you can´t make it...
The bad...
After I left the beach, I spent a night in Liberia and then crossed the border into Nica. The border crossing was LONG and hot. First I had to stand in line for a couple of hours to leave CR, then I walked across the border (maybe a third of a mile?), then I had to stand in line to enter Nicaragua. Then I had to cross through a gate to the border town, where I got on a crowded school bus to go to Rivas. Tourism has done some not so nice things down here. The main aspect of it that I find frustrating is the people constantly trying to ¨help¨ you. It drives me crazy. When I crossed the border, every time I got to a new location, about 5 people would surround me to offer their guide services, taxis, etc. And they all talk at once, and get too close, and it´s really nerve-wracking. I think it´s worse too because I´m a girl, traveling alone, so the offers are usually mixed together with suggestive comments and lots of kissy faces. Yes, truly - lip-puckering. No kidding. By the time I got to the border town I was frazzled, and when I got accosted there, I looked up and said in Spanish rather forcefully ¨Look guys - leave me alone, I don´t need any help, or a taxi, or anything, thank you very much, excuse me!¨ That worked pretty quickly. I felt bad for shouting, but geez! I was definitely channeling someone more assertive than myself :)
The ugly...
Well, it´s not really fair to call lay all of the ugly blame on Isla de Ometepe, where I am now. All of this was fairly common in Costa Rica as well. In fact it´s really gorgeous here - the island was formed by the two volcanoes that are still here, in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. It´s way calmer and safer here than it was in Costa Rica. There are some nice beaches, and yesterday I climbed the smaller of the volcanoes. But...the harassment continues, and it´s making me feel quite alienated. I can´t walk around by myself without people coming onto me - maybe it´s a common part of Nica culture, but it really makes me uncomfortable. To top it off, the other day this kid followed me home in the dark as I was walking back to my hotel, and seriously wouldn´t leave me alone. He was 16, for christ´s sake! I told him I didn´t need help, I knew where I was going, etc., but he just kept on saying he could ´accompany´ me. Then he started trying to put his arm around me, asked me to kiss him, etc. If I wasn´t so agitated I probably would have busted out laughing. I literally had to remove his hand from my waste tell ask him not to touch me or bother me because it was pissing me off. Then he was like, ¨Oh, sorry, I didn´t mean to make you angry. Do you want to give me a tip for walking you home?¨ I just walked off. I figured it wasn´t much use to try to explain to him why I most certainly did not want to tip him for making my walk home extremely unpleasant.
So, I´m feeling a bit isolated. I can´t really blame the Tico (Costa Rican)/Nica (Nicaraguan) culture for all of it. Honestly, there are plenty of people who show up in the smallest towns down here, don´t speak a word of Spanish and have no desire to take a bus, and they want someone who speaks English to lead them to a taxi. So there is a demand for this sort of thing. To top it off, although there are some well-intentioned ex-pats and travelers, there are also plenty that are arrogant assholes, so I guess I might not have that much respect for me either, if I was from here, and I didn´t know me! There are some other travelers to hang out with - yesterday I hiked a volcano with some of them. There´s a French couple in the hostel/farm where I´m staying that is really nice, but other than them, I haven´t really connected with anyone recently. I think that I will leave here on Tuesday or Wednesday and go to Granada, which is a decent sized city. It´s supposed to have beautiful architecture, and I´m sure there´s plenty to do there. I´ll probably stay there until the 18th, when I´ll head to Managua for my flight home for Christmas.
Sorry for the downer post, I´m just feeling a bit disillusioned this week. Como siempre, estoy segura que solamente necesito tener paciencia. Espero que todo esta bien con ustedes :)
Well, I´m a bit behind on blogging. It´s about an hour to get to internet where I am now, so I haven´t been online much. The beach was very nice and relaxing overall, although the tourists were starting to come in droves as I was leaving. It´s the beginning of the high season, so it will get a lot busier. I felt like I really got to relax there, and I gained some new perspective. I read some really good books. I stopped drinking beer :) I spent a lot of time with my Argentinean friends, who are some of the most genuine people I´ve met traveling, and let me stay with them for a week. And - my Spanish is really good these days. Not perfect of course, but I can communicate generally without any trouble. When people ask me if I speak Spanish these days, I say yes (instead of ´kind of´). Strangely, I keep getting asked (by several locals and 2 Germans) if I´m from Germany. I don´t think I have a German accent in Spanish! Either way, I take it as a good sign. Maybe, at the very least, it means I don´t have a screamingly obvious American accent :)
Thanksgiving was a huge success. I started cooking the night before, making cold salads and stuff, and cooked all day on Thanksgiving. We had about 19 people show up - 3 Americans and others from France, Belgium, Italy, Costa Rica, Argentina, Israel, England, Holland, and another little bitty country that I can´t remember the name of! There was plenty of food - I´ve never cooked for so many people in my life. Everything went really smoothly too, until about 5 p.m. I had been running back and forth from the house to the grocery store to a neighbor´s (because she had an oven), and about 5 or 5:30, she got home and ran down to tell me that the oven was out of gas. I had stuffed chickens inside it at that point and two casserole dishes waiting to go next. Eek! Fortunately, the Belgians own a bakery, so two of the guys left, balancing the chickens and the casseroles on their laps on a four-wheeler, to stick them in the oven at the bakery. What a trip :) They made it back safely and we all ate and drank wine. Overall, it was probably my most interesting Thanksgiving yet. Everyone thought it was really cool - a lot of them commented that the only things they new about Thanksgiving were from the movies. After that, I hung out for a few more days and then headed north. I did my first payed work before I left the beach though - I worked in a surf shop on the beach for 3 hours. They paid me $6. It was actually my friend Noe´s job, but she couldn´t go that afternoon, so I went for her. Crazy, huh? I don´t know of anywhere else in the world where you can send a friend to work for you if you can´t make it...
The bad...
After I left the beach, I spent a night in Liberia and then crossed the border into Nica. The border crossing was LONG and hot. First I had to stand in line for a couple of hours to leave CR, then I walked across the border (maybe a third of a mile?), then I had to stand in line to enter Nicaragua. Then I had to cross through a gate to the border town, where I got on a crowded school bus to go to Rivas. Tourism has done some not so nice things down here. The main aspect of it that I find frustrating is the people constantly trying to ¨help¨ you. It drives me crazy. When I crossed the border, every time I got to a new location, about 5 people would surround me to offer their guide services, taxis, etc. And they all talk at once, and get too close, and it´s really nerve-wracking. I think it´s worse too because I´m a girl, traveling alone, so the offers are usually mixed together with suggestive comments and lots of kissy faces. Yes, truly - lip-puckering. No kidding. By the time I got to the border town I was frazzled, and when I got accosted there, I looked up and said in Spanish rather forcefully ¨Look guys - leave me alone, I don´t need any help, or a taxi, or anything, thank you very much, excuse me!¨ That worked pretty quickly. I felt bad for shouting, but geez! I was definitely channeling someone more assertive than myself :)
The ugly...
Well, it´s not really fair to call lay all of the ugly blame on Isla de Ometepe, where I am now. All of this was fairly common in Costa Rica as well. In fact it´s really gorgeous here - the island was formed by the two volcanoes that are still here, in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. It´s way calmer and safer here than it was in Costa Rica. There are some nice beaches, and yesterday I climbed the smaller of the volcanoes. But...the harassment continues, and it´s making me feel quite alienated. I can´t walk around by myself without people coming onto me - maybe it´s a common part of Nica culture, but it really makes me uncomfortable. To top it off, the other day this kid followed me home in the dark as I was walking back to my hotel, and seriously wouldn´t leave me alone. He was 16, for christ´s sake! I told him I didn´t need help, I knew where I was going, etc., but he just kept on saying he could ´accompany´ me. Then he started trying to put his arm around me, asked me to kiss him, etc. If I wasn´t so agitated I probably would have busted out laughing. I literally had to remove his hand from my waste tell ask him not to touch me or bother me because it was pissing me off. Then he was like, ¨Oh, sorry, I didn´t mean to make you angry. Do you want to give me a tip for walking you home?¨ I just walked off. I figured it wasn´t much use to try to explain to him why I most certainly did not want to tip him for making my walk home extremely unpleasant.
So, I´m feeling a bit isolated. I can´t really blame the Tico (Costa Rican)/Nica (Nicaraguan) culture for all of it. Honestly, there are plenty of people who show up in the smallest towns down here, don´t speak a word of Spanish and have no desire to take a bus, and they want someone who speaks English to lead them to a taxi. So there is a demand for this sort of thing. To top it off, although there are some well-intentioned ex-pats and travelers, there are also plenty that are arrogant assholes, so I guess I might not have that much respect for me either, if I was from here, and I didn´t know me! There are some other travelers to hang out with - yesterday I hiked a volcano with some of them. There´s a French couple in the hostel/farm where I´m staying that is really nice, but other than them, I haven´t really connected with anyone recently. I think that I will leave here on Tuesday or Wednesday and go to Granada, which is a decent sized city. It´s supposed to have beautiful architecture, and I´m sure there´s plenty to do there. I´ll probably stay there until the 18th, when I´ll head to Managua for my flight home for Christmas.
Sorry for the downer post, I´m just feeling a bit disillusioned this week. Como siempre, estoy segura que solamente necesito tener paciencia. Espero que todo esta bien con ustedes :)
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Nicaragua...and Christmas!
Well, I made it to Nicaragua. I haven´t ever walked across a border before! The trip was interesting, but I haven´t got good internet right now. I´ll blog about it later this week. For now, I´m on an island called Isla de Ometepe, place called Venezia, which is in Lake Nicaragua. I´m going to spend a week here exploring and then we´ll see.
In other news, I´m coming home for Christmas. Long story, but I kind of already had a ticket, so... I´m flying to Atlanta on Dec. 18th, and I´ll be flying to Guatemala on Dec. 30th. If anyone is still thinking about joining me around the New Year, I plan on being in Guatemala for several weeks, starting the 30th. It´s really cheap to fly before the new year! I´m not sure what I´m going to do for New Year´s Eve yet, but I´ll find something.
In other news, I´m coming home for Christmas. Long story, but I kind of already had a ticket, so... I´m flying to Atlanta on Dec. 18th, and I´ll be flying to Guatemala on Dec. 30th. If anyone is still thinking about joining me around the New Year, I plan on being in Guatemala for several weeks, starting the 30th. It´s really cheap to fly before the new year! I´m not sure what I´m going to do for New Year´s Eve yet, but I´ll find something.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Staphylococcus
Well, I went surfing 4 days ago, which was so ridiculous you wouldn´t believe it. It was really hard, but fun. I laughed a lot, at myself, because there was nothing else to do. I did manage to stand up once, for about 2 seconds. Glory! I´ll try again one of these days. However, I violated one rule of surfing unknowingly. I wrapped the leash around my hand a couple of times in an effort to hold on to the board as the waves were trying to rip it away. As a result, I noticed the next day, I had a nasty rope burn on the side of my hand. Swollen, pussy, the works, but I wasn´t too worried about it. However, yesterday, my friend Noe asked me why I had red streaks running down my arm. I hadn´t noticed them before but we decided they must be from the same incident. Later on last night I a guy in my hostel pointed out that those lines can be a symptom of potential blood poisoning. Hmmm...it did look rather nasty. I googled it, called my mom the med-tech, and well, I ended up being escorted through Mal Pais to the closest emergency clinic on a 4-wheeler by a Belgian guy with 30 inch dreads, plowing through the dust like we were in the movie Wild Hogs. I´ve never actually seen this movie, but I imagine it has scenes that resemble last night. His friend accompanied us on his own 4-wheeler, and they both did a little tire-squealing and engine revving. It was classic. After a long consultation with the medic in Spanish (I was so proud of myself!), I went home with instructions to take Amoxicillen for a week and to keep an eye out for blistering down my arm, which could indicate blood poisoning, in which case I should proceed directly to the emergency room.
Besides contracting a potentially fatal infection, everything is going great. I´m running again (yay!), reading a lot, and generally enjoying the beautiful sunsets and gorgeous beaches here. I forgot that I haven´t blogged since I got to the beach. I´m in Santa Teresa (near Mal Pais), visiting my Argentinian friends that I met at the ranch. I´m staying at a quiet little hostel with a few other folks, which I like. There are a lot of tourists here, and I really didn´t like the first hostel I was in - lots of loud, crazy, young people drinking all day long. Now I´m a lot happier, although I´m still anxious to get away from the crowds and actually meet some local people. I´m finding that a bit tough to do in Costa Rica! I think I´m going to stay another week or so, then go north to meet a group of friends from the ranch, then continue north to Nicaragua. A Swedish friend is going to meet up with me for a couple of weeks in Nicaragua. I´m thinking about coming home to Georgia for Christmas.
Hope everyone is well! More to come, including pictures...
Aura
Besides contracting a potentially fatal infection, everything is going great. I´m running again (yay!), reading a lot, and generally enjoying the beautiful sunsets and gorgeous beaches here. I forgot that I haven´t blogged since I got to the beach. I´m in Santa Teresa (near Mal Pais), visiting my Argentinian friends that I met at the ranch. I´m staying at a quiet little hostel with a few other folks, which I like. There are a lot of tourists here, and I really didn´t like the first hostel I was in - lots of loud, crazy, young people drinking all day long. Now I´m a lot happier, although I´m still anxious to get away from the crowds and actually meet some local people. I´m finding that a bit tough to do in Costa Rica! I think I´m going to stay another week or so, then go north to meet a group of friends from the ranch, then continue north to Nicaragua. A Swedish friend is going to meet up with me for a couple of weeks in Nicaragua. I´m thinking about coming home to Georgia for Christmas.
Hope everyone is well! More to come, including pictures...
Aura
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Aura's Unintentional Abuse of the Spanish Language
Ahhh...if only some of you bilingual people could have heard the things I've managed to say this month without meaning to. I think it's time for some comic relief. Here are some of the funniest slipups I've had with Spanish in the past month:
Aura (to Mosco): Me quieres hacer algo en el compost?
Literally, 'do you want to do something to me in the compost?' What I meant to ask was, do you want me to do something in the compost. Mosco almost lost it when I asked him this one day after lunch. It became a running joke from then on out...
Aura (to Noe): Que significa chino? Entonces, por que ellos dijieron que querian comprar un chino?
Literally, 'what does chino mean?' Noe tells me that chino means a chinese person. I then proceed to ask her why her friends said they wanted to buy a chinese person. Everyone laughs hysterically, even me, although I have no idea what we're laughing at. Turns out, I overheard the argentinas and another guy talking, and I thought they said they wanted to buy a chino (chinese person). What they really said was they wanted to buy something in a chinese store, like food.
I'm working and Jerry and Lolo walk up. Jerry looks at Lolo and says, 'Ovejas?'
Lolo: Si, si. Las tengo.
Jerry: Se vende? Are they for sale? Aura, can you translate for us?
Me: Sure, sure, but I'm confused. You really want to buy ovejas from Lolo? (I'm laughing)
Jerry: Yes. (He's not laughing).
Aura: Are you sure?
Jerry: YES!
Aura: Okay, okay. What do you want to know?
I proceed to translate for about 10 minutes. Lolo describes his ovejas, signalling with his hands how big they are and how old they are. We discuss when they can meet so Jerry can see them. I'm completely incredulous - Jerry is the volunteer coordinator, and he works with bees. I can't figure out for the life of me why he wants to buy a sheep from Lolo, but I play along, trying not to giggle. They agree on the details. They leave. I shrug and continue working. The next day, I hear Jerry talking again about this issue, and well, basically I figure out in front of about 10 people that they were talking about 'abejas,' which are bees, pronounced suspiciously like 'ovejas,' especially since Jerry doesn't really speak Spanish. Hilarity ensues :)
Aura (to Mosco): Me quieres hacer algo en el compost?
Literally, 'do you want to do something to me in the compost?' What I meant to ask was, do you want me to do something in the compost. Mosco almost lost it when I asked him this one day after lunch. It became a running joke from then on out...
Aura (to Noe): Que significa chino? Entonces, por que ellos dijieron que querian comprar un chino?
Literally, 'what does chino mean?' Noe tells me that chino means a chinese person. I then proceed to ask her why her friends said they wanted to buy a chinese person. Everyone laughs hysterically, even me, although I have no idea what we're laughing at. Turns out, I overheard the argentinas and another guy talking, and I thought they said they wanted to buy a chino (chinese person). What they really said was they wanted to buy something in a chinese store, like food.
I'm working and Jerry and Lolo walk up. Jerry looks at Lolo and says, 'Ovejas?'
Lolo: Si, si. Las tengo.
Jerry: Se vende? Are they for sale? Aura, can you translate for us?
Me: Sure, sure, but I'm confused. You really want to buy ovejas from Lolo? (I'm laughing)
Jerry: Yes. (He's not laughing).
Aura: Are you sure?
Jerry: YES!
Aura: Okay, okay. What do you want to know?
I proceed to translate for about 10 minutes. Lolo describes his ovejas, signalling with his hands how big they are and how old they are. We discuss when they can meet so Jerry can see them. I'm completely incredulous - Jerry is the volunteer coordinator, and he works with bees. I can't figure out for the life of me why he wants to buy a sheep from Lolo, but I play along, trying not to giggle. They agree on the details. They leave. I shrug and continue working. The next day, I hear Jerry talking again about this issue, and well, basically I figure out in front of about 10 people that they were talking about 'abejas,' which are bees, pronounced suspiciously like 'ovejas,' especially since Jerry doesn't really speak Spanish. Hilarity ensues :)
Friday, November 13, 2009
Pictures from the ranch
Here are some pictures from my last couple of weeks at the ranch. I changed my mind yesterday and ended up going to Montezuma. It went something like this: bus, bus, bus, ferry, bus, bus... Argh. Anyway, I'm chilling now and I'm going to visit some friends from Argentina tomorrow in Santa Teresa. More about the journey later - now I'm going to visit a butterfly garden and relax on the beach!
Aura
Aura
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Back to the city...kind of
Well, I left the ranch yesterday, but I didn't make it very far. I am currently in the closest town, La Fortuna, staying in a $4 a night hostel and trying to get all my crap together. I washed all of my clothes, sent a bunch of emails, and I'm looking for a place near the beach to go chill for a few days.
The last few weeks were pretty eventful! Let's see... Noe had to leave because her boyfriend had an accident with a four-wheeler. She's in San Jose with him right now - they had to do surgery, but he's going to be okay. I haven't been working with the sheep any more, because they've been staying in the barn, but I've been visiting them every day. They were getting used to me and starting to eat from my hand.
We threw a surprise party for the wife of one of the garden guys. Francisco (the husband), who I worked with for my first 3 days at the ranch, invited me. I was already going to Fortuna for cash, so I offered to pick up the supplies. I got a bunch of beer, meat for grilling, and a cake, and then me and 3 of the other guys snuck up to their house in this little barrio near the ranch and surprised her. Mosco was playing the guitar and we were singing. It was so sweet - she had no clue, and she started crying! She said no one had ever done anything like that in her whole life. I got to meet her daughter, who is 12. I had already met Flor (Francisco's wife) and her son. She taught me how to make corn tortillas, and her daughter gave me a picture she had painted. We all sang and ate and drank...fun, fun.
I went to Earth University with Mosco last week, and it was amazing. It's huge and beautiful, but there are only about 400 students. It's the oldest certified organic farm in Latin America. I did an all day soap workshop and made soap and shampoo, which was really cool. I have to wait a couple of weeks until I can use it, but I'll let you know how it turns out. I finally decided that I need to travel right now, but I'm still considering going back to the ranch later on. Mosco says he'll pay me to help out for a couple weeks or a month, so I'm going to keep that in mind over the next few weeks. Right now, I want to plant my ass in the sand somewhere sunny! I spent last night and today laying around the hostel reading...deliciously lazy.
Anyway...I'm going to post more soon, including an update of where I go to next, pictures from the last couple of weeks, and a summary of how I did when I planned my budget and packing list. Hope everyone is well!
Aura
The last few weeks were pretty eventful! Let's see... Noe had to leave because her boyfriend had an accident with a four-wheeler. She's in San Jose with him right now - they had to do surgery, but he's going to be okay. I haven't been working with the sheep any more, because they've been staying in the barn, but I've been visiting them every day. They were getting used to me and starting to eat from my hand.
We threw a surprise party for the wife of one of the garden guys. Francisco (the husband), who I worked with for my first 3 days at the ranch, invited me. I was already going to Fortuna for cash, so I offered to pick up the supplies. I got a bunch of beer, meat for grilling, and a cake, and then me and 3 of the other guys snuck up to their house in this little barrio near the ranch and surprised her. Mosco was playing the guitar and we were singing. It was so sweet - she had no clue, and she started crying! She said no one had ever done anything like that in her whole life. I got to meet her daughter, who is 12. I had already met Flor (Francisco's wife) and her son. She taught me how to make corn tortillas, and her daughter gave me a picture she had painted. We all sang and ate and drank...fun, fun.
I went to Earth University with Mosco last week, and it was amazing. It's huge and beautiful, but there are only about 400 students. It's the oldest certified organic farm in Latin America. I did an all day soap workshop and made soap and shampoo, which was really cool. I have to wait a couple of weeks until I can use it, but I'll let you know how it turns out. I finally decided that I need to travel right now, but I'm still considering going back to the ranch later on. Mosco says he'll pay me to help out for a couple weeks or a month, so I'm going to keep that in mind over the next few weeks. Right now, I want to plant my ass in the sand somewhere sunny! I spent last night and today laying around the hostel reading...deliciously lazy.
Anyway...I'm going to post more soon, including an update of where I go to next, pictures from the last couple of weeks, and a summary of how I did when I planned my budget and packing list. Hope everyone is well!
Aura
Friday, October 30, 2009
Soap and Sheep
Well, this has been an interesting week! Two of my Argentinian roommates left, but one of them (Noe) is still here. We had an Argentinian asado the night before they left, which was also Noe's birthday. It was a fun party - we grilled meat and toasted bread and drank a lot of wine :) Since then, things have been all over the place. I had to work in the laundry for a couple of days to try to figure out what was wrong up there - there have been a lot of problems with clothes not getting clean and taking too long, so I followed around the laundry girls and wrote a little report. Then I went back to the garden (yay!) and learned how to make soap out of used kitchen oil. How interesting! It was a little chemistry lesson, and it was really cool to mix. Noe wants to start a new project to experiment with making different types of soap. I want to learn how to use glycerine, but we haven't done that yet. Mosco says the soap you can make with glycerine is better, but usually it's kind of expensive. Pop, he thinks you could be selling yours if you're not using it :)
Yesterday, Noe and I had to herd sheep! That was the most hilarious job I have done so far. I mean, I was laughing all day. We had to take the sheep out of their pen and move them to another field because there was no grass left in the one they were in. We were supposed to watch them/move them around for a few hours, clean their pen, and then move them to the dairy so they could be treated for some various illnesses. It took us a good 15 minutes to get them out of the pen and moving down the road. Noe was running back and forth across the pen, and they just kept galloping in circles. I was standing outside in the road laughing. We finally got them out to the field, lost them a few times, and then ran them back to the pen by accident. It took us a while, but overall we thought we were doing pretty well. However, that changed after lunch. After lunch, Mosco asked us to go get the sheep and take them to the dairy. We went back down to the pen, ran them out, and starting moving down the road. About 50 yards down the road, they veered under a fence and took off across a small field. I was closer, so I ducked under the fence and took off after them. Unfortunately, we were wearing flip-flops at this point, because for some reason, we thought this part would be easy! Did I mention that these sheep are very scared of people? I chased them through a couple of fields, to another road, and halfway up towards the mountain. Then I decided I had to head them off, so I crossed into some more fields and starting traversing, ducking under fence after fence, until I got ahead of them. I ran them all the way back down towards Noe, back to the other road, and they ran right around her and directly back to their pen! I was laughing so hard that I thought I was going to pee in my pants! We starting out screaming "Good sheep, good sheep" and within 5 minutes we were screaming "Puta madre! Ovejas estupidas!" We had to start all over, but the second time I crossed into the fields from the beginning and followed alongside the road, crawling under fences as we went. When we got almost there, they tried to run down another road, and I ended up running all around the stinkin' farm, for about a half a mile to head them off, yelling at the garden guys to please help us with the fucking sheep! They just looked at me like I was nuts. Anyway, we finally got them into the barn. By the time I got back from my run two guys had come to help Noe, and they were just getting them inside. I will never forget that experience, for sure!
Last night we went to the closest small town to a hotel bar with a few friends. One of the guys is leaving tomorrow, so we went to have a little party. Today, Noe and I had the day off, so we ate breakfast late, talked a lot and drank a lot of coffee, and took a nap. She's really cool, and I'm enjoying getting to know her. I think we might go to El Castillo (a small pueblo near here) for dinner with one of the other volunteers, a guy from Florida, tonight. We'll see.
Mosco (my supervisor/friend) asked me yesterday if I would consider staying for another month to help him develop an education program he's working on. He wants some help writing the English materials and putting the information on the webpage. I have to think about that a lot because I really like Mosco and I like working with him, but I'm not sure I want to stay that long. I was planning on leaving after I go to Earth University with him on Wednesday. Hmmmm...
Let's see, only one other piece of news. I heard from the job in the Galapagos, and they wanted to know if I could come earlier than the time period I applied for. They sent the email to 5 people, and I replied yesterday saying I could come at the earlier time, so I'm waiting to hear back whether or not that means that I got the job. I hope so! If so, that will mean I need to be in Ecuador at the end of January.
Well, I hope everyone is well. Post and let me know if you're keeping up with the blog, and how you are!
Aura
Yesterday, Noe and I had to herd sheep! That was the most hilarious job I have done so far. I mean, I was laughing all day. We had to take the sheep out of their pen and move them to another field because there was no grass left in the one they were in. We were supposed to watch them/move them around for a few hours, clean their pen, and then move them to the dairy so they could be treated for some various illnesses. It took us a good 15 minutes to get them out of the pen and moving down the road. Noe was running back and forth across the pen, and they just kept galloping in circles. I was standing outside in the road laughing. We finally got them out to the field, lost them a few times, and then ran them back to the pen by accident. It took us a while, but overall we thought we were doing pretty well. However, that changed after lunch. After lunch, Mosco asked us to go get the sheep and take them to the dairy. We went back down to the pen, ran them out, and starting moving down the road. About 50 yards down the road, they veered under a fence and took off across a small field. I was closer, so I ducked under the fence and took off after them. Unfortunately, we were wearing flip-flops at this point, because for some reason, we thought this part would be easy! Did I mention that these sheep are very scared of people? I chased them through a couple of fields, to another road, and halfway up towards the mountain. Then I decided I had to head them off, so I crossed into some more fields and starting traversing, ducking under fence after fence, until I got ahead of them. I ran them all the way back down towards Noe, back to the other road, and they ran right around her and directly back to their pen! I was laughing so hard that I thought I was going to pee in my pants! We starting out screaming "Good sheep, good sheep" and within 5 minutes we were screaming "Puta madre! Ovejas estupidas!" We had to start all over, but the second time I crossed into the fields from the beginning and followed alongside the road, crawling under fences as we went. When we got almost there, they tried to run down another road, and I ended up running all around the stinkin' farm, for about a half a mile to head them off, yelling at the garden guys to please help us with the fucking sheep! They just looked at me like I was nuts. Anyway, we finally got them into the barn. By the time I got back from my run two guys had come to help Noe, and they were just getting them inside. I will never forget that experience, for sure!
Last night we went to the closest small town to a hotel bar with a few friends. One of the guys is leaving tomorrow, so we went to have a little party. Today, Noe and I had the day off, so we ate breakfast late, talked a lot and drank a lot of coffee, and took a nap. She's really cool, and I'm enjoying getting to know her. I think we might go to El Castillo (a small pueblo near here) for dinner with one of the other volunteers, a guy from Florida, tonight. We'll see.
Mosco (my supervisor/friend) asked me yesterday if I would consider staying for another month to help him develop an education program he's working on. He wants some help writing the English materials and putting the information on the webpage. I have to think about that a lot because I really like Mosco and I like working with him, but I'm not sure I want to stay that long. I was planning on leaving after I go to Earth University with him on Wednesday. Hmmmm...
Let's see, only one other piece of news. I heard from the job in the Galapagos, and they wanted to know if I could come earlier than the time period I applied for. They sent the email to 5 people, and I replied yesterday saying I could come at the earlier time, so I'm waiting to hear back whether or not that means that I got the job. I hope so! If so, that will mean I need to be in Ecuador at the end of January.
Well, I hope everyone is well. Post and let me know if you're keeping up with the blog, and how you are!
Aura
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
