megajinxed

10:57 pm: How Does My Account Still Exist?
Imagine if we spent the time understanding everyone around us and why they act and react the way they do? Time consuming- right? Utopia always is. I am reading a fantastic book which basically points the finger at everything I've learned incorrectly in my cozy middle-class white upbringing. I thought it would be harder to watch the walls fall down around me, but I'm finding it incredibly refreshing.

I had no idea how interesting my life could sound in a squabble of 45 minute complaints to a counselor at school- not very interesting. I feel like I should go in again and again if only to prove that I have more on my mind than how rich people are rich and I am immature. That's my simple segue into the fact that I am finally reaching out for that ounce of assistance that might make my hectic days seem peaceful and my anxious nights seem full of slumber. The truth is, I am finally wrapping my head around being in school again and, in my little ways, I am feeling a voice rise up inside me. I am feeling the power of knowledge again, and this time, the responsibility.

I have never- yes, never- read King Lear. It is on my list of things to do over Christmas break. I want to be a part of that great community we call theatre, and I want to know pieces of it that I wouldn't have tried to know in the past. I want so much more than 4 hours two times a week can tell me.

Am I a teacher? It's funny. I'm not anything like one just yet. I have a lot of ideas circling around in my brain and no experience in which to try them. I'm terrified and excited by the prospect of it. What I do know is that I am thinking again. I'm thinking about my future as a wide open field where I can build what I need and what I love with my bare hands.

At work, I looked up wine jobs. I'm considering leaving my decently paid position to pursue something that brings me great joy. If I do decide to leave, the hardest part will be facing the people I work with and hoping that they understand. I hate the idea of screwing someone over in pursuit of something different. How do I tell someone that I want to talk about wine with people who love wine because there is an art in choosing a good wine. There's a science, but there's a love behind it all.

In class, we've been talking about a lack of people going into farming careers and low-paid positions. And I think how delightful the world might be if I could crush some grapes in the fall and green harvest some leaves in the late spring, and taste the first drops of a nearly perfect varietal of wine out of a French oak barrel.

I think about how wine is a lot like students. There are some climates that grapes cannot weather and different climates with yield wines with different characteristics. You cannot judge a wine by it's color and bouquet alone. You have to get to know it- know where it's been and what it's journey was to where it is now. Know if it was treated right in the bottle, cared for at the appropriate temperature. If the grapes were picked at the exact right time of year and if they were allowed to flourish, or if they were picked in haste during an early frost that threatened to take them. Vines must be cared for and watched carefully and given a chance to produce: as should students.

I should have been a great many things.

11:08 pm: What are these desperate moments that happen before a great life change?

Jason Webley sings to my soul:

"Sitting round the floor you're looking tired,
tell me that you're scared to die, scared to die, scared to die,
still a little scared to live.
The little light, the little fire
still there just behind your eyes, behind your eyes,
behind your eyes.
Let the waves come through your door,
relax your fingers, let it fade away."

11:21 pm: Words as Water
I have a vision of words as water, filling up a room like an aquarium. I swim through them, I feel them around me and in me and they carry me. I don't read the words- I touch them with my arms and legs, my fingertips, my lips. They seep into my skin, but I don't open my eyes. I want to drink them in, but I don't open my mouth for fear of choking on the words.

01:54 am: Home
Well, after 22 somewhat hours of air time, I'm back in sweet sweet Lawrence where I have no car and no cell phone and I feel like a fly trapped under a glass. Happy Memorial Day to me. I'm sure I'll feel more rational once I get a full night's sleep. I won't go into detail because I feel bad about how little excitement there is here, but it has to get better after this.

I hope you have a fantastic holiday weekend and I hope to see you soon now that I'm stateside!

07:30 am: On Moving Forward
"Inherit the Wind" has this amazing quote, "All motion is relative. Perhaps it was you who moved away- by standing still." I have found that life is a narrative. We live in chapters. We flourish in one, strive to flourish, in another, quietly accept defeat. My New Zealand Chapter is coming to an end and I'm not sure what to make of it. It wasn't like the online photos. Not like the books that hold other worlds in them- worlds with trees and mountains and lakes that are larger than life, Shakespearean. But Shakespeare never came to New Zealand. It would be impossible for his words to describe what I've seen and what I've felt. There were moments of defeat. Money wasted on a car that will earn us $100 in a bidding war. A car worth peanuts now and accruing parking tickets. There were moments when I wanted to see the sun rise and fall on the most beautiful land I would live to see. Beauty is relative, too. Early on I found myself aching for the Roman Forum, Rievaulx Abbey, and the many structures that stood through time.

But I worked at a vineyard, saving vines by day and driving on a beach covered in seashells and clams. I've dug for my dinner. I saw a shooting star in the most silent night I have ever been a part of, in a sky full of the universe and promise. I sat by the shore of a turquoise bay with sight-seeing helicopters overhead and bagpipes playing behind me, the hot New Zealand sun warming me through my layers. I've taken a tea break while nurturing blueberry bushes, befriending bees, and reading to my heart's content. I cycled the Marlborough region while sipping delicious wine, and stayed at the most comfortable B&B that ever existed. I jumped from a plane at 15,000 feet and soared toward the earth at incredible speeds until a parachute pulled me to safety and showed me how content the earth was from above. Everyday a palm tree sat happily in my backyard, swaying in the Wellington breeze while downtown bustled below. I struggled through a bushwalk and rode a pig and peed in a compost bin for days just so I could work on a house made of recycled materials.

And now I head south in 2 weeks to see a glacier and the fiordlands before I go to my childhood dreamworld, Australia. And then I'll laze on the beaches of Phuket and see the historical sites of Bangkok.

I have found contentment because I've realized how very lucky I am. How very blessed. And, if it weren't enough already, my adventures are accompanied by my very best friend and soulmate. And I get to finish off my journey in San Francisco where I'll see old friends and in Boston, where my family waits. And my extended family, all those who have taken care of my heart and my soul and my dreams. And then I get this gift of education. Emerson College will teach me how to teach and maybe I can help others to see their luck in life. Maybe I can help others pursue their dreams and open their hearts.

Excuse me, please, as I've had a couple glasses of a fantastic white wine from Blenheim- Toru, a blend of gewurtztraminer, riesling and pinot gris. But I hope to count my blessings as often as I can and to live in and for the moments of their existence. In short, I am in love with life and all of its extraordinary turns.

03:12 am: The Tea Rose
When I was traveling from Wellington to Christchurch to head to Queenstown, I was reading "The Memory-Keeper's Daughter." It was decent. Interesting concept for a story. Unfortunately I had just read an article about coincidences in movies and how gullible audiences are while watching them. The whole book looked like a big coincidence to me. Everything fell magically into place. Anyways, if you can ignore that, it's a worthwhile read. On the plane, a woman looked over and noticed what I was reading. She leaned over and asked me if I was enjoying it. I told her I was. She then took got excited and told me about a book club she was in. They had read the book in her club and she was sure that I would enjoy other books she had read so she scribbled down 4 or 5 books for me and handed me the piece of paper. We didn't talk after that and she disappeared out of my life into Christchurch.

As soon as I got back to Welly and finished Memory-Keeper, I rushed to the library to take out "The Tea Rose," one of the books she recommended. She told me that she couldn't stop reading it. It turned out to be a hardcover 500 somewhat page book and she was absolutely right! With images of old East London in the time of Jack the Ripper and the up-and-coming city of New York, a bustling sanctuary for the main character, I couldn't pull my eyes away from it. I have to say, it was the first story, in a long time, that I felt empty upon finishing. Luckily, the Tea Rose has a sequel called "The Winter Rose." I will be reading this shortly! Just got it out of the library. Anyways, I highly recommend reading these books, especially if you have found yourself in love with London or just in love.

That's all. :)

12:36 am: I got in!!
I just got word from my mom that I got into Emerson for Theatre Education!! Teaching world watch out!! :D

11:53 pm: The Late Nights and the Early Mornings
I work at 5:15am which means I need to leave my flat, looking respectable, at 5am. I get ready in the dark or in the bathroom. Sometimes I stumble over a pair of ill-placed shoes or I bump into the bedpost on my journey to kiss a half-asleep Peter goodbye. I embark into the chill air of fast-approaching Wellington Autumn in darkness lit by the far off lights of the central business district. I walk up a hill. I pass by a high school where I am sure I will meet some radical students smoking pot in the wee hours, but I never do. I pass the WWI War Memorial thinking about how I ought to go in it someday when I get home from work, but I never do. I walk down a hill. I cross a busy street which is no longer busy at 5am. I cross the street again before I reach the homeless shelter because I am frightened of what I do not know. Then I pick up the newspaper and the fresh baked muffins left in front of the gym and I begin my day at 5:10 or 5:11 as a bright, shining receptionist. I work until 1:45pm and then I work out or I don't and I head home with the best of intentions to get work or laundry or reading done, but I nap. Today, I fell asleep while writing an email and awoke to an email body full of vvvvvvvvvvvv's as I must have pressed the key in my sleep. The weekend comes. I stay up as late as I can. I don't want to miss out. I sacrifice sleep to feel that I'm a part of something. I hate myself come Monday. And I begin the cycle again. Where have the days gone?

I am frightened, or is it just numb? I'm blessed by so many lovely people and events around me. I have finally broken the code! I have made friends. I am still lonely when Peter has separate plans. And I no longer know why. When he's here, I fall asleep on his warm shoulder without much interaction because of my long days, and because Peter's shoulder has a secret magic about it that causes gentle rest. And I feel so connected and at peace because I can so easily lie next to someone, entwined with someone. His arm feels like an extension of my own. But I miss something about that. I miss the part where his arm felt like his arm touching my arm. The part where his pinky could graze my hand and my body would be at alert that this handsome, wonderful man was brushing against me by accident. With comfort, I become frightened. I still want those spontaneous moments. I want that kiss in the rain to last a lifetime. But that's childish. Isn't there a magic in knowing what someone is thinking? I guess what I'm trying to say is that I miss myself when I was with Peter for the first time. I miss the carefree girl who didn't divulge everything that was bothering her. Why do I burden the ones I love with all the sadness of my days? Why can't I fill them with only the good parts?

I said, "I felt lost without you this weekend and I kept thinking that I should just be at home because there is nothing for me here." And I did feel that way for a half a day. But I should have said, "Friday night I danced on the moon with a Maori poet through an actor of his work. I drank beer on the house because I so impressed the old owner of my favorite cafe on Willis Street. He told me how the cafe used to be filled with wagon wheels and lumber until the last owner stole away it's first identity. He told me that he was able to preserve just a few stumps from the lumber and he showed me the stumps, painted red, a part of the cafe's wall. The actor told me that he didn't act for himself. He acted because he loved the cafe so much that he felt fulfilled if just one new person learned of it because of his performance. He gave me a poetry book even though I was seeing his show for free and I stowed it in my purse and carried it like a treasure." It's too late for that one now. My tongue runs away with me. It makes the beautiful moments sound hurried. It lingers on the sorrow.

Though it may be a silly song to quote, The Pogues said it right: "I just want to tell you nothing you don't want to hear." I want to say all the things that make your heart soar.

05:22 pm: For the past few months, I lived in a little suburb of Wellington called Karori. Karori is where the well-off families of Wellington settle down and mountain bike on the weekends. It's right near a park and a bike trail. It also happens to be a valley on a hill... if you can imagine something like that. While our views were of the distant hill completing the valley creating a very Italian looking landscape, the valley itself brought with it the worst of Wellington weather. If it was sunny in Wellington, it was most likely foggy and rainy on our hill in the valley. I can't tell you how many times we walked home in the windiest, rainy conditions. What I can tell you is that I didn't always carry a raincoat, and on one such occasion, as I was fighting the wind and rain was soaking through my three layers, I bawled my eyes out on the walk home. Was this New Zealand in the summer? The southerlies that pass through are frosty like the early days of winter and they come on so fast that you could very well be wearing shorts as they sneak through.

And then there was Blenheim. After a three hour ferry ride with minimal seating (many people were sleeping on the floor wherever there was room since it was 8AM when we boarded and many of us had to consider travel time when setting our alarms), we arrived to the South Island. Our first sight was of its rolling mountains, dry as they were, and palm trees lining the shore. We arrived in Picton, a small nothing sort-of-town, with lovely beaches and mini golf. From there, we took the Naked Bus to Blenheim. And then there was sun. Not a cloud in the sky and the warmest day we had experienced in months, Blenheim proved to be everything we dreamed. We had lunch at the local pub where burgers were a mere $8. If you've ever eaten in NZ, you would know that burgers and sandwiches with fries are generally $15-18. For gourmet foods, you would expect to spend up to about $35 per meal. Since these prices do not include the booze I would like to consume, I felt a great wave of excitement at the affordable burgers. After some exploring, Nigel (of Nigel and Helen who own the B&B where we stayed) picked us up from town and brought us to the most gorgeous B&B I've ever seen. Their driveway was loose rock and was lined with purple flowers. The "garden room" where we stayed opened to it's own porch with a small table and two chairs for late night wine toasts. Off of the porch was access to the guest lounge where breakfast would be served overlooking the vineyard and distant mountains, and Sky TV could be watched. A small refrigerator was provided for chilling wines. Above it were handpicked walnuts, wineglasses, and homemade muesli. If this isn't enough for you, the bathroom alone would be. Helen put out natural hand soap, bath gel, and shampoo along with sachets of make-up remover. A hair dryer was attached to the wall beside a heated towel rack. The towels were that thick, white bathrobe cloth and they were the size of blankets. I could live the rest of my days in only that towel.

Nigel was sweet enough to drive us back into town for dinner. We went to Chequers and shared a cheap pizza with buy-one-get-one house wine while we listened to a local artist play his guitar. After an hour or so of music and three glasses of wine each, we headed to Cobblestone, a slightly classier bar where we continued to drink wine on a black leather couch for two. We finished the night with a couple of expensive chocolate truffles, called a cab, and headed back to our dream room where we stripped down to our undies and put on our big white robes to watch some tv.

The next morning I slept in after two weeks of early mornings and arose to the sounds of breakfast being laid out. Helen set up honey dew and cantalope next to our choices of muesli and fresh organic yogurt. A kettle of coffee was in the middle of the table beside home-made biscuits with butter and jams. Carafs of freshly squeezed apple and orange juices were now on the fridge beside the walnuts. And again the sun was out and it was already warm enough to wear shorts and a t-shirt. We finished our breakfast of kings, and made our way out behind the house to collect the bicycles for our wine tour. Nigel gave us a map and some suggestions of where to stop on the route and we set off for an amazing day of wine tasting and riding. We probably biked about 11 miles throughout the day and saw about 12 vineyards. Our favorite was Te Whare Re, where we bought 4 bottles. Other highlights included the tower at Highfield which overlooked gorgeous far-stretching vineyards, and Isabel which looked like a building straight out of Arizona complete with a brick-oven. During our entire ride, there were vineyards as far as the eye could see, most of them lined with wild roses and enveloped by rolling hills.

Needless to say, the trip back to Wellington was a difficult one. I could ride a bike through vineyards everyday and not tire of it. Besides, the ferry ride home confirmed our love of the south island. Bad weather into Wellington caused enormously choppy seas through the Cook Strait. Two hours of our boat ride were spent with no access to the top deck and ocean spray rising up against the ship with every rolling wave. When we arrived back in Wellington it was, of course, raining and cold. I wanted to hop back on the earliest ferry and stay in the South Island for the next 5 months. Instead, we made the long, cold, rainy walk home to Karori for our last night there. We packed up our things, I did some quick laundry, and got some shut-eye so Peter could get to work in the morning while I finished packing us up.

Monday was full of ups and downs as the person who volunteered to help me move wouldn't answer her phone. During an excursion to place marketing boxes, Peter, his manager and her fiance moved us out. In my mad rush to grab everything and to get out of their car so they could return to work, I forgot some liquor, shoes, a towel, and worst of all, my cell phone in Karori. Did I mention that my first day of work at the gym started on Monday? After moving us, I hobbled (I also didn't mention that I hurt my foot about two weeks ago and it still hasn't healed) to work from 4pm-7:30pm. After work, I was too tired to unpack and too anxious about my first early morning shift the next day. So, it was my first night in a new bed, in a new room, and I had to be up at 4:45AM to walk to the gym by 5:15AM the next morning.

My first day went surprisingly well. There's luckily a checklist for me so that I have a reminder of my duties. There is a lot to do in the 15 minutes before our gym opens to the public, but I made a list in my head of all those things, so my second morning would go swimmingly. The only really hard part is trying to tell my body to get up that early and having my mid-day break at 9:30AM. It's really a breakfast break I guess, but I'm starving by about 7AM, and I'm not sure what to do about it yet. I got home after work and slight grocery shopping at the coolest local store, and slept for an hour. I probably thought about unpacking, but only managed to put away a few stray items that ended up in the way of my nap. That night, I couldn't sleep due to my mid-day snooze, so I stayed up until about 11:30PM only to be awoken at 2AM by the new flatmate moving in. He moved in at 2AM. Who does that? I fell back asleep and was tormented by anxious reception dreams.

Early morning #2 was not as calm as morning #1. A fitness instructor is assigned the morning shift and opens the doors in the morning. This particular morning, a new instructor swiped his card, entered the building with me and I went about my checklist. In the middle of turning on computers and trying to figure out what I was supposed to do next, Fitness Chris came over and said "A loud alarm is about to go off." Since he is responsible for turning off the alarm, I was pretty confused. He seemed overly irritated and tried to get out through the sliding doors. Unfortunately, when the alarm is activated, you are locked in the building. I found out later that Chris had typed his password into his cell phone and left his cell phone in his car. Luckily, as I was still a trainee, the reception manager would be in any minute to help me open, and she would be able to turn off the alarm. This is how an ear piercing alarm happened to go off at 5:15 in the morning at the gym. This is not the end of my story, however. Since it was my second day and I wanted to get my work done before people showed up to work out, I continued to turn on spas and saunas and do my work in the locker rooms. When I walked out of the men's locker room, a rubbish lid lay on the floor smashed to pieces. Ignoring this, I rushed into the ladies' locker room and continued my work. The alarm went off by some miracle, so I returned to the front desk and turned on the radio and set to wiping down tables. After a few minutes, my manager appeared. She said something about Chris flying off the handle and I asked what happened. Apparently, during the loud buzzing and due to his anxiety at having set off the alarm, he threw the rubbish lid at the wall, hitting a big flat screen tv instead and denting the screen. What?! I was then asked my side of the story so that it could be repeated to the gym manager who was awoken at 5:20 in the morning by a call to say that the alarm was set off. Ugh.

After an exhausting, dramatic early morning shift, I rushed in to see Gavin, the gym's physical therapist. He took a look at my foot, decided I had injured my tendon (of course) and performed an ultra-sound before taping up my stinky foot and giving me little exercises to do. He told me to leave the tape on through today. I set out of his office, grateful to have some answers. Instead of resting as he suggested, I walked my ass across town, picked up Fringe Theatre Festival posters and went store-to-store to ask if I could hang them up. After and hour of walking on my bandaged foot, I decided to sit and eat before returning with the posters and crashing for the day. I ate at the Sea Food Market which you would expect to taste fresh and healthy, but it was the greasiest fish I've ever had, so I didn't even eat the whole meal. I dropped off the posters and headed home on foot, holding in the biggest stomach ache of all time. I made it home, turned on some Jack Johnson, and slept for 3 hours straight. That pretty much brings us to today. I woke up this morning to the fresh smell of cigarette smoke. I blame the new flatty. Our room has smelled fine for the past couple days and then he moves his disrespectful self in at 2AM and apparently smokes in his room the next morning as the hallway smelled, too. I feel dirty and exhausted, and I need to get to the post office and Karori to pick up the rest of my things... but I'm afraid to wash the tape off of my foot, so I can't shower, and I'm not supposed to walk too much, so how will I collect my things? Instead of worrying about these things, I've lit a candle, cracked a window, and decided to begin the adventure known as the grad school entrance essay. I'll let you know how my first draft turns out.

02:54 am: Transitions
As you, my dear readers, probably know, I am just terrible with segues. It follows then that I would be equally as terrible with life transitions. Since I am faced with many at the moment, I find myself out of breath. I suppose I am also delighted, but I feel ripped apart and left to the wind.

I am in New Zealand. I am, until Wednesday, a fashion consultant at a life-sucking profit-seeking corporation called "Farmers" where I waste my days as a slave to sales and top class customer service. Come Thursday, I am receptionist and all around ray of sunshine for Exodus, the gym where Peter is a salesman. I already know the people who work there, and despite the obviously crooked individuals that own the gym, I think I'll fit in fairly well. However, selling day after day with cheery eye contact and compliments for every ugly piece of clothing in Farmers has left me without that general glow I usually have. I want to walk in and be the kind of person I would like to meet. I'm just exhausted and don't know if I can muster up the kind of strength it takes to be excited for another dead end job that I'll be leaving in the span of months.

Beneath of this film covering my personality, I have this strong desire to apply for Emerson's Theatre Education program. However, as you probably have read, my GREs were not up to my standards. And I don't know if they were up to Emerson's. So here is the real push: Emerson decided not to charge an application fee this year due to the recession. Doesn't that sound like a sign that I should apply? All I have to lose is an acceptance, which I can apply for again next year. The truth is, I'm scared to be heartbroken. I'm scared that a rejection would make me believe that I don't belong teaching theatre. I'm also terrified to get in. It's only a 2 year commitment and they have wonderful networking opportunities, so most of their graduates are placed in jobs quickly. I can't guarantee that I'm good at directing... that I even understand all of the elements of theatre, but I do know that directing Orange Flower Water as my senior thesis and heading Stage Company were the best things I've ever done. I know that at the time, there was no question: I knew that what I was doing was what I was meant to do. Now, being away from it all, it feels like a beautiful dream. I've awoken to a person far less courageous than she was in her dreamworld. I want her back. I think that's what all of this traveling has been. I want to find my voice again, my vision. I want to indulge in deep conversation with like-minded people.

I haven't started my application essay. I put it off because I want it to be brilliant. I think about things that cause me passion. I write them down in a little notebook that says "Bold Ideas" on the cover. Peter got it for me for Christmas. I type ideas. I say this phrase in my head again and again and again: "Understand that your opinions are not the truth." I feel connected to it. I feel moved by it. I read it in a psychology magazine. It makes me think, again, about the power of discussion, the power of education. And above all, it makes me think that we're all on the same level- we all have something brilliant to add to the world, something thought-provoking, despite what our GRE scores may say. And I want that. I want to teach and to be taught. And to tell Emerson that they're one in the same. I want to see ideas through someone else's mind, someone newly exposed to them. And the excitement of it hangs like an anvil from my chest. It feels like a heavy treasure that I'm supposed to break off into small manageable pieces. Or maybe it's just fear that all this is an empty hope.

I will write it. I will apply. But first, I will start my new job, take a trip to Blenheim, come home, pack my bags, and move into my new apartment in Mount Cook. Then I'll sigh, a big cleansing sigh, and I'll sit down and I'll write like I mean it. And they'll know I mean it because it will ooze out of my words.

Courage sometimes feels less courageous than I once imagined it.