from the air/from the ground

a few photos from my trip earlier this month to see radiohead in the midwest. life is so full and busy at the moment, i can only edit things piecemeal after i've gotten ready for bed each night. i still owe you europe photos. i still owe you europe stories.

one thing at a time.

for tonight: a few photos from the air traveling east to st. louis & a few photos from the ground driving west to kansas city.

from the air:



from the ground:

nesting nights

it's been two weeks since i moved into my apartment. i am only a box or three away from being entirely unpacked though the settling and tinkering process will continue for months.

and it's been a rough two weeks.

half of that time was spent sick, the other half living into the grittier realities of having a space, of having this space, of being responsible to it, even burdened by it, and spending much of this time in a state of mild disappointment. i feel like a mother handed a perfectly healthy newborn and finding myself unable to love it with abandon. it's all late night screaming and dirty diapers at this point.

i know there is a lot here. a lot of potential. a lot of beauty. and in between me and all the good things i feel moving toward me is a whole lot of work, a lot of courage, and a simple dose of truth and movement.

one of my good friends stopped by last night to drop off the plants he has been so graciously watching for me these past eight months. as he stepped into the main living space he had the similar pause of awe most everyone encounters when they first see it. and as we sat there in our separate quiet, i was moved from no where i could name to say: great things will happen here.

and i sat in surprise at the truth of that statement.

yes, great things will happen here.

and i am not saying the world will be changed by the people that gather at the table, surround my fireplace, or through the art i make here, but my life will. greatly. far greater than i can foresee or even ask for at this point.

and the thought still pierces my heart a bit – a counterpart to the quiet longing for the other side i feel accompanying me most days. the other side of unpacking. the other side of uncertainty. the other side of transition.

later, after a simple meal shared over my old/new table, i laid all of the above out to my friend confessing the guilty secret of my {temporary} disconnection from the space. my heart spilled over for a moment in grief at the telling.

until.

until i saw behind him a curled up poem that another friend gave me for my birthday last year. it's lovingly printed and sewn together as a wall hanging that is only waiting for the perfect place to be displayed. when she gave it to me back in november she said it was a poem to welcome romance into my life. romance of all kinds but above and beyond anything, a romance for life itself.

i moved toward the poem, scooped it up, uncurled it, and read it aloud to my friend.

and damn, it hit home.

it hit that place that so longs for what the words offer, to live a love out into the world so truly, so passionately, so fiercely....and i spoke those words into the space around me, my friend as my witness, and suddenly the life of the space opened up to me. the potential became a thing around the corner instead of some unattainable future as something big shifted and opened inside of me.

and today i find i can rest now in hope. i can rest and breathe in possibility. and i can feel that some day soon, great things will start happening here.

{no longer nomad nights, but here is where i will lay my head for as long as i would like – more photos soon}.

sparklers!

the night before leaving for two radiohead shows in the midwest and visiting with a slew of wonderful people from my past, i took a little trip out beneath the full moon with two friends and a handful of sparklers. the perfect celebration before a week of amazingness {more on radiohead soon} and kicking off the final week of my nomadic life.

any photos depicting me in them {and probably one or two of his sister, christina} were taken by scott.

the last nomadic nights

tonight i sleep in my own bed after 242 nights of being a nomad. that's two and a half times the length i thought this adventure would be. while visiting my friend from college this past week, i was sitting at her dining room table thinking about the changes that have slowly come over me during this time and i was cataloging all the small things like being more open to try new foods and letting go a lot faster when things aren't quite perfect {like that new scrape on the car, the little dent on my new iphone, etc} or being more open and ready for adventures. these are the small things and i know — i know — that these small changes are just facets of all the bigger changes that happened as well.

so, here are the final places i have traveled through and dreamt in these last few weeks between finding my new place and finally being able to move into it.

nights 217 & 218

a last minute petsitting gig while i was housesitting 

in february for my friend in ethiopia.

night 230

after housesitting in february i moved to eden's 

for the last week here before traveling west 

{first night in her bed and the rest in the living room on a grand air mattress}

nights 231 to 234

& 236 {after a night's adventure to vancouver}

the grand air mattress

night 235

in vancouver for a quick trip with my new friend, 

christina to visit an old friend from nine years ago 

 nights 237 & 241

onward to st. louis, radiohead shows and sylwinn's

{the first and last night of the trip to missouri}

night 238

crashing after the first show in st. louis 

with another old friend, cloudie  

nights 239 & 240 

at the aladdin hotel in kansas city, missouri 

for the 2nd radiohead show

back to sylwinn's for one mostly sleepless night. then:

final night: 242. 

a late-night pick-up from the airport. 

a touch delirious but happy to be back 

ending in another restless night struggling to get to sleep. 

movers scheduled to arrive at 9am march 14th, 2012, exactly 8 months after this crazy adventure began.

the first of three shows

it was perfect. heartbreaking, heart expanding, can't stop moving perfect.

too bad it passed like this:

on the rail

for the first time ever i am waiting for radiohead to play with my length pressed against the rail. its chilly bars will be the only thing between myself and my favorite band.

radiohead, the biggest mirrors in my artistic sky, and i get to experience you front and center.

i am seeing them twice this weekend along with a large number of people i haven't seen in as many as nine years. then i return to seattle to be finally (re)united with my home sweet home.

here i am, on the rail. waiting for great things.

vienna skies

the europe photos continue.

vienna skies: here are a handful spanning a late morning start {after a run i believe} until i had to return home in the evening for an incredible dinner on the grill. still have fond memories of that evening of good food and company {thank you ellie & emmerich}.


 

unrecognizable

sometimes you take a photo of yourself and there is no trace of the person you think you look like. it's surprising. it's refreshing. and yet it can also be humbling and somewhat heartbreaking when it's a version of yourself you think surpasses anything you have imagined yourself capable of being.

i don't know why this photo makes me stop and pause, why this grainy, slightly blurry iphone photo makes me think i am beautiful in a way i steadfastly refuse to give myself any credit for. perhaps it's the professionally done hair. perhaps it's the jaw line: so much clearer since the cleanse of this past month that has gently encouraged the excess flesh there to melt away. maybe it's that at least one person out there not only thought me kissable tonight but found the desire to act on it, however briefly.





no....scratch that. it's not that last one i am certain of and for that i am grateful. 

no, this photo is about me. about the transformation of the past months. and it's more than just my lines and curls and clavicle. it's about a poise and calm. and it's about some elusive simplicity intertwined with beauty that isn't for display or to earn anything or anyone, but rather a reflection of some inner delight and acceptance surfacing. suddenly. peacefully. finally.

i guess that's the true victory of these eight months without a home: discovering the ability to take pride in the spaces of my most immediate self: my body, my spirit, and the lines and colors and curves that they share. always before, i could only give beauty to the spaces of my home, transferring my power to something outside myself, unconsciously divesting myself of the most inherent truth of me.


not only do i have a home again, but now, just now, i finally feel like i have earned it.

home stretch

i should have known not to call any place the final stop on my nomadic tour until all the details were settled, but now they are and it is less than 2 weeks until i move into my own place again.

less than 2 weeks. thirteen days.

so close. we are so very very close.

i move in on march 14th, 2012, exactly eight months {to the day} after i moved out of my apartment at #44.

finally.
i get to put down roots.
i get my own kitchen.
i get newly refinished floors and painted walls.
i get to host lovely gatherings. as many as i have time to organize.
i get to re-imagine my books in a new way.
i get to paint {in a light-filled room} all the colors i found in europe.
i get to snuggle under a new down comforter purchased to celebrate the reunion.
i get to take baths in a claw foot tub again.
i get to stretch out into corners and window boxes and back porches.
i get to invite you in, make you a meal, show off the parts of my spirit that cannot be seen except when they are allowed to spill out in all their vivid colors into the spaces under ceilings and next to walls.
i get to have my own house key again.
i get to have a home.
i get to go home.
again.
and again.
and again.

my landing-place has returned to me.

and as much as it has been vital for me to live and connect and create without relying on a home space, having only myself to rely on, i finally get to return to a rooted life. as a choice, i give myself the gift {one should never take for granted} of the ease and joy of always having a landing-place. and as i search back through my blog to provide you with the above link, i am reminded that i first came across the two janet winterson quotes from that entry while i was in housing limbo 3 1/2 years ago, just before i first moved out into my own place for the first time. it was so scary then not knowing where i would be going and feeling like i was giving up the most wonderful home i could ever have, but things have only gotten more and more beautiful starting that first apartment i got to have all to myself: here.