How are we here and now?

I shut my eyes for a few moments and woke up in December, or that’s what it feels like. Tomorrow is my last day of class for the term, which started last week, or that’s what it feels like, and my first final is in nine days, which I wish were an eternity because I have a lot to process before that.

I won’t stop marveling at how we are here and now already, how outside it’s cold and there was snow on the ground on Saturday and my pains are dull, except for the pain in my back which ebbs and flows but flows each finals period.  Some people feel seasons in their bones.  I feel finals in my spine.

The past few months were full of rewarding struggle, of coming to higher ground, of being scared and pushing through the fear.  I’m proud of what I’ve learned, and shocked that law school is half over.  Time oft speeds, no?

I’ll be putting my head down for the next fifteen days to finish strong.  And in twenty-two days, I’m getting on a plane and flying to summer and not coming back for a long time.  So to the grind we go.

Well — with all that is coming up — YOLO.

animalstalkinginallcaps:

I CAN’T TELL IF I’M HONESTLY FULFILLING MY DEEPEST WISHES AND PURSUING MY DREAMS OR IF I’VE JUST BEEN YELLING “YOLO” EVERY TIME I DO SOMETHING EXCEEDINGLY STUPID.

IT’S NOT LIKE I’LL HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO RECTIFY ANY SERIOUS MISTAKES I MIGHT MAKE.

YOLO, AND ALL THAT.

Wraparound

3.

Foster feeling, your poppied gaze

is all the lunar tide it takes

to float the deadweight of our days.

                                — Sherod Santos, excerpted from World News

I’m getting back into words, which should surprise virtually no one; reading and hearing and occasionally writing them.  Every night this week, I’ve substituted Parks & Rec with The Best American Poetry as my pre-sleep ritual, and tonight, I’ll substitute class reading for slam poetry at Cantab Lounge.  I’m hoping I’ll hear something of quality that’ll keep this going.

Fight Fiercely

This year, The Game was held at home in Cambridge — much less of a production, much less of a commitment.  Fewer strangers, more friends.

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OFFICIAL: Upcoming Extended Travel Back on the Books

Finally.  This morning, I received an email that school has approved my winter term project.  So, while I haven’t yet paid out the $2,500 for airfare, it is only a matter of time: I’m going to the South Pacific!!

Around Christmas Day, I’ll fly to Auckland, New Zealand to see some high school friends who have relocated there.  I’ll likely be there for 9 days — including New Years (so my mission to be out of town for NYE is successful for another year) — and then will fly to Melbourne to meet up with my parents.  About 6 days later, I fly to Sydney, where I will be living for just under 3 weeks, doing research for a governmental organization revising the country’s copyright laws.

COULD I BE MORE EXCITED?  About freedom, long-term travel, exploring — no.  About leaving 15-degree Cambridge and landing in 80-degree summer — no.  I can’t believe this all came together, but I’ll be abroad and doing something fun and meaningful in a short 46 days.

Will it ache every time I hear the storm running behind me?

As I watched Hurricane Sandy brew ominously yesterday morning (I woke up to gray darkness in my normally light bedroom), the wind whistling through the cracks of my windowpanes, I got an unshakeable urge to get out there in it.

And so I did.

I ran down to the river — my normal route — but through a semi-deserted Harvard Square where most shops and restaurants had already shuttered and hidden.  I listened to Thursday’s A City By the Light Divided which called back my 17-year-old moodiness, but I was happy, one foot in front of the other down familiar sidewalks and then straight to the rippling water.

I had to stop, twice, because the wind was so strong; I turned my back to it, fielding the breeze and drizzle backwards, made it back in terrible time but amazing, light, airy happiness.

You know what?  I think I’m back.

O Canada

Leaving Cambridge wasn’t enough for us a few weeks ago — we left the whole country behind.  Six girlfriends and I decided to road trip to Montreal for a weekend, because — why not.

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because/perhaps I was

in September I crouched behind a waterfall, shielding

my curling hair from the onslaught of horizontal rain and

rainbows lit concentric circles

I tied my hair back and took one moment in repose, when

the sun bled golden streaks, captured in forever, but

who took that photograph?

I drove for hours in silence.

Racing, to injury

Yesterday morning I woke up at 6:30 AM without any idea of how my race was going to go.  My knees were creaking and cracking and sticking for the past 3 weeks or so, and I’d given them a rest, and my right knee was worst so I iced it regularly in hopes it would recover enough to put forth a brave effort on race day.

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Engines set to flare

I sat down with a clinical advisor this afternoon — she approved of and was excited about both of the options I laid on the table for January.  It is a unique and ultra positive feeling to know that I have my school’s support.

I don’t know where, yet, but it looks like I’m going places, and the prospect is amazing; the urge to run has shaken me down in the past few days, upon reflection and reminiscing about the hills I climbed and sights I saw many months ago.

At this juncture, I find Milan Kundera’s immortal words ever more meaningful: “The worst thing isn’t that the world isn’t free, but that people have unlearned their freedom.”

I think that since 2005, I have slowly unlearned my freedom.  This is truly the time to relearn it.