i missed the old days this weekend. a lot.
old friends, old places, all being in the same old places together–you know the drill.
love.
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Tag Archives: austin
impromptu art
one blank shed wall + four old wooden frames + paint + awesome friends = super fun
eulogy for a summer
the end.
11 weeks, 4 countries, 3 currencies, 9 airplanes, 2 ferries, 10 beds, 7 passport stamps, 4 cell phone carriers, 2 roommates, 3 islands, and 1 birthday later (not to mention countless bus rides, train trips, a motorbike, a road trip, several languages and accents, and a million trips to H&M and topshop), my summer of awesome comes to an end.
parts of this summer were unduly stressful, i’m not going to lie — sometimes working on the proofreading project was really hard, way more than i bargained for; the continual traveling took a definite toll; and sometimes the culture differences i found myself in the middle of were frustrating. other days were sad — the night before my birthday; sometimes feeling homesick and then realizing i had no home at present to return to; saying goodbye to new friends. but there were calm days as well — peacefully uneventful, and yet satisfying beyond words — cafes and canal walks in holland; lazy days at the beach in crete; rainy afternoons in london; traipsing around the UT campus in austin. and there were, of course, the best of bright moments — the breathtaking (mesdag panorama), the hilarious (our road trip to bath), the inspiring (painting frames at the coys), the exhilarating (motorbiking around santorini), and the cherishing (quiet afternoons in romford) (those are my top 5 moments from this trip, incidentally). there were the good friends i reconnected with, the new friends i made, the family i saw again, and the me i discovered a little more about. taking into account all the ups and downs, the aims and failures, tumbles and climbs, i think this summer fits perfectly in with the best year of my life. every moment was not amazing, but on the whole — like the year itself — it was wonderful.
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real life beckons — i have moved back to california to work for a small christian publishing company. i won’t be doing anything too glamorous — just helping with some electronic materials they are using — but i’m looking forward to it. it’s a small cog in my Bigger Plan, but i’ll post regarding that in a separate post. for now, that’s the skinny.
in my heart
i’ve struggled to start this post several times now, perhaps because i am still struggling to understand the experience itself. what is it that i want to convey? i want to convey how much i truly love austin: the city, the people (the ones i know, and the strangers, too), the buildings, the roads, the buses, the weather — i love this city. i love it for (and not in spite of) its flaws. i think of this city, and i think of a few lines from e.e. cummings’s poem “i carry your heart with me:”
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
…
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky …
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
i carry this town(do i carry its heart?) with me, not in a pocket as perhaps i carry the other towns i cannot bear to leave – towns like london and bath, anaheim and both cambridges now. i carry austin in my heart.
and then the struggle is to convey the truths above and the truths below:
that last night i was ready to leave, to go back to boston. how can i be ready to leave if austin is so much a part of me?
perhaps i am ready to leave the chaos — we are helping a friend move house and its physically exhausting, emotionally exhausting, too. i am trying to see as many people as possible — cramming them into the corners of afternoons because i truly want to see them, and i cannot figure out how to stretch 24 hours into being any more than that — which is exhausting as well.
and, to be fair, i have done the things i came to do. there are other things i want to do, too, of course, other people to see (of course! of course!) … anyway i don’t know.
can you love something — have it be a part of you — and still be ready to leave it?
p.s. its the middle of the night. my perspective might change after some sleep.
home again, home again (jiggity jog)
wandering through the austin airport:
i’ve walked through this airport so many times. if i want to, i can tell myself this is the same as usual — an arrival home on a late flight, the airport poised to close, the restaurants barred up, only the one gift shop still lit. TSA official huddled as the last group of arriving passengers trudge, exhausted, down the corridor.
but i’m a visitor now. and while i feel like a prodigal, returning, the thought tugs that there is no home waiting. there is only a borrowed bed now, under another’s roof.
its a sad thought at first, but the trouble is, i mostly feel like julie andrews in The Sound of Music: i want to swing my suitcase around me, dancing as i walk, belting out with “I have confidence that spring will come again / despite what you see, i have confidence in me.”
visitor or not, i’m still home. i think i could live in hundreds of places, return here a thousand times, and still feel like every time is charged with the solace and relief that comes from coming home.
