I had a  difficult night last night. My body has been cooking a respiratory virus and last night it began its 'life'. I will not go into descriptives (everyone has had a cold before), but I headed it off at the pass. I netti-potted my nose, did a salt-water gurgle to take care of the sore throat, and went back to bed. This morning, the throat is not as bad (it helps to brush teeth and rinse the tonsils with salt-water), and my head is not as cloudy. In fact, I woke up this morning ready to take on the PLANET! I have not wakened in the morning with this feeling in quite a while. I call it 'The New Frontiers Wake-Up Feeling' because I felt it almost every day that I woke up while at New Frontiers. A strong feeling, a happy/joyful/energized feeling. I used to get it when I awoke in The Birdhouse, while driving the trash down to the dump in the old gray Chevy pickup truck (dodging random chickens, cats, dogs, and other animals that decided to cross the old country roads), waking up in the cave and making those wonderful horrid pancakes in the dark with only a gas lantern as our light, when I awoke and knew that I had a full day starting with packing all of the canoes onto the wrack and hooking the canoe trailer to the truck and filling it with gas. I remember clean-up days where we would all take the entire day and clean campus, top to bottom. Just my luck back then, I grabbed a bucket and it had a hole in it. When I filled it with water, there were no buckets left, and instead of waiting for another bucket to be free, I just filled my leaky bucket with soapy water and ran to wherever it was that I needed to clean and tried to clean as fast as I could before all the soap and water ran out! The good thing about this method is that I never had to dump out the dirty water. As I walked past Lori Nellist on my way back to the hose, I heard her singing, 'There's a hole in your bucket, dear Dee-ee, dear Dee-ee! There's a hole in your bucket, dear Dee-ee, a hole!' I looked up at her, and we both laughed hard...I had to go back and fill my bucket again. I loved seeing that infectious and rare smile on her face so much...it warmed my heart to its core, and I could not help but laugh with her.
     I remember shaving my head for the first time, I remember my first time belaying, scrubbing mildew out of the bathrooms, stubbing my big toe on a rock while walking barefoot at night and the pain of losing my entire nail at once. I remember my calloused hands and feet, sitting on the long porch of Victory Hall and playing my guitar while a storm brewed in the sky. Laying by a crackling fire in my sleeping bag and hearing Johnny and his long gray beard tell ancient stories while carving a Jee-Haw Whimmy Diddle, and learning things to eat and what not to eat to avoid getting ticks and chiggers (chicks and tiggers, as they are sometimes called). Standing on the top of the Giant Swing and looking down into the valley, hearing the wild cats roar and the owls hooting at night, the night I was sleeping in my bunk with the door open and a deer came clomping into the room and its antlers were so close to my face while I lay stark still in my bunk! All of the midnight missions we took those kids on and encouraged them to go beyond what they 'thought' they could do.
    So this morning, as memories flicker through my head and heart, and I feel this strong sense of energy and beauty and hope and joy and strength and love, and so many other things that I cannot describe, I feel the need to write as I have not in over 13 months...nay, perhaps a few years even. I am reminded of the words of Patti Griffin, 'You know it's a mad mission, under difficult conditions. Not everybody makes it to the loving-cup! It's a mad mission, but I've got the ambition. Mad mad mission....Sign Me UP!' That is how I feel right now, and more. I know it will not last forever (and I would not want it to), but it is nice to be reminded of it now and again. So many days we all walk around in our trail of tears, but that is not how we were meant to live - I am convinced of it.
     I am not the most articulate person, but I live to be real, and I like to write truth. This is my first attempt at writing and articulating my thoughts and heart in a very long while, so bear with me please, as everything rushes to my head at once and my hands struggle to type it all out while trying to make sense of it all. The brain works so much faster than my hands and mouth can work, and I get all jumbled as the words tumble out. It is like any language that I encounter....I can usually begin to understand the language in my head way before I can actually begin to start remembering the words to respond with.
     'I wish that you could see me when I'm flying through my dreams! The way I laugh there way up high! The way I look when I fly, the way I live! The way I FLYYYYY!'

Live life....love on......

Whispering is the Adventure

An interesting thing is happening. My voice, which is not very large or intrusive to begin with, has left me completely, and I cannot speak beyond a whisper. I struggle with pushing air out through my vocal chords as I usually do, but alas nothing comes out except a whisper. I can bellow my lungs with air, and rapidly and forcefully blow it out! But my vocal chords have locked themselves in an ice casing, and are unaffected by the urgings of my breath, and it appears that they mean to remain so. There is no pain accompanied with this. It is as if my voice has run away for a time. It is funny to be in the same room as Anne, in our tiny little house, and I have to move in close proximity (mostly within around 3-5 feet) so that she can hear me whisper, 'What kind of eggs would you like?'. Or, if she wants to have a conversation with me, she must hunt me down wherever I am in the house. It is a bit like playing Marco-Polo - she will keep repeating the question, as she searches for me, until she hears my whispered response. I remember playing that in the pool with my sisters and friends growing up - one of us who was 'it' would close their eyes and search around the pool with their arms outstretched trying to tag everyone else in the pool while the other people swam away. The only trouble with this game, is that even though you yell MARCO! you cannot always hear if there is a POLO out there. In my case, Anne unfortunately has to blindly wander around the house until she finds me, unless I go to her.

      One thing that I am finding is that I can express myself whenever I want! The 'catch' is (and I am not quite sure yet whether it is a 'catch' or not...I am still living inside of it and exploring this phenomenon) that even if I do express myself, I am not guaranteed to be heard or understood. Sometimes, I am not even noticed. All in all, I am not quite sure how to feel about this. I am not bothered by the inconvenience of it yet, and I find it to be a little freeing because I now do not have to talk. Even with my normal vocal range, I at least have people constantly bending an ear towards me saying, 'Huh? What did you say?' But now I have nothing. In my interactions today, I got into the elevator and said nothing, though I formed the words. That is how all of my interactions have been today, and it feels a little surreal - almost like when you are watching a film and you speak to the characters and they cannot hear you. Those who have interacted with me today and have heard my whisper do not expect me to talk. It is refreshing. But others who do not know me, and expect me to be able to talk like any normal person (because that is what people do) seem to shoot me frustrated looks or look at me like I am the rudest of all human beings on the planet.

     I have found a higher appreciation for listening to and paying attention to the things around me again, since I cannot fill the void with my own voice. Also, I cannot argue, so disagreements are not 'settled' using words, but by other means. Someone makes a statement, and if I do not agree with it, I cannot object to it immediately except by frowning and shaking my head, or biting my lips as I stare intently at them in a disgruntled way. It makes me stop and think about how I can express my point of view...and what exactly is my point of view? While I am at it, why do I disagree with the statement? So, my summation is this: in order to express something without words, you need to know the root of it inside of you, so that you can then interpret it into an entirely different language, sans voice, and convey your ideas. It is like trying to express 'loud noise' in a photograph. The next step is trying to then express why you like or dislike loud noise - again, in a photograph.

     This experience is reminding me of when I was a very little girl and had nothing to say so I barely spoke at all.