And i'm back?

A comment from another blogger reminded me that i even HAVE a blog, so here we are. I've been absolutely swamped with my application for Seattle University and i've finally given up on applying for this scholarship that i don't qualify for, so now i'm sitting here in my scrubby flannel shirt with a cup of cocoa, about to pop in The Motorcycle Diaries.


Ah, yes. And let's take a moment to celebrate our new president-elect.


Done? Alright.


So there was recently a schoolwide writing contest, which i entered last year and got third place in the poetry division. (I'm surprised three people even entered poems.) This time, however, i didn't enter. I haven't been able to write anything for almost a year- it's a little disconcerting since writing is really what i get most of my comfort from. I don't know whether it's been stress, lack of time, what have you, but whatever it is i don't like it.

Also recently, i came to really see something that i've always know about- the Peace Corps. The more i think about it, the clearer it is to me: i am priviliged and healthy and it feels as though it is my responsibility to help people who are not. After college there is nothing i would rather do than just go away from this life for a year or two. Escape the trivial problems. Face those that are so much more important, and then maybe i can better appreciate what i have when i get back. Yes, i'll be homesick. Yes, i'll miss my friends and family. Yes, i will be severely tested when i hit about the three-month mark and realize that i really want a banana split.



But here's the thing. Let me see if i can explain with this quote from one of my favorite plays, "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds":

"He told me to look at my hand, for a part of it came from a star that exploded too long ago to imagine. This part of me was formed from a tongue of fire that screamed through the heavens until there was our sun. And this part of me--this tiny part of me--was on the sun when it itself exploded and whirled in a great storm until the planets came to be.

And this small part of me was then a whisper of the earth. When there was life, perhaps this part of me got lost in a fern that was crushed and covered until it was coal. And then it was a diamond millions of years later--it must have been a diamond as beautiful as the star from which it had first come.

Or perhaps this part of me was lost in a terrible beast, or became part of a huge bird that flew above the primeval swamps.

And he said this thing was so small--this part of me was so small it couldn't be seen--but it was there from the beginning of the world.

And he called this bit of me an atom."


All of the people on this Earth, more likely than not, are a part of me. We are all made of atoms that, at one time or another, may have worked together to be a single creature, a single raindrop, a glorious star-- and who am i now to abandon a part of me? I have a responsibility to these people the world over, to try my best to help them be healthy, safe, and fed. A lot of people i've talked to say they feel no such responsibility and some even call me crazy-- hell, i call myself crazy when i think about certain aspects of serving-- but the truth is always there, embedded in me like an atom, like these people:

This is what i have to do.

Antsy and uncomfortable.

Grrr... of course now it's semi-late at night and i'm getting to my restless state of existence. I wish i were doing something useful, something that would, in some way, shape, or form, make me feel like i weren't wasting my night in this linoleum and too-bright-lights kitchen. I just feel itchy. I want to crawl out of my skin.

I could be drawing a flipbook of a man turning into a gorilla and the gorilla turning into an elephant and the elephant dancing a waltz.

I could be writing a story, a letter, an essay on why i don't like the dark.

I could be stuffing my bed full of clothes, hopping a bus to Seattle, finding a show for a band i've never heard of and, depending on what they sound like, will never hear again.

I could be making a video of all the things i love, all the things i hate, all the things that puzzle me or frighten me or make me want to stand up and go wash the dishes.

I could be playing a stunning kazoo rendition of a Nirvana Greatest Hits medley.

I could be drawing a picture of a capsized boat.

If i'd gotten started sooner, i could be bringing food to someone who needs it or love to someone who thinks they don't.

So of course the persisting thought, the ever-present question lurking as i type this is--you guessed it--

Why AREN'T you, then?

And the persisting thought, the ever-present answer is...

Because i'm