Arrival!

Finally, after waiting and waiting (more than three years!), I woke up this morning and it was September 26th. That date has been sort of etched into my brain, at first as an abstract that couldn't possibly be further away, and then as a distant goal that had several hurdles in front of it. I worked the summer at camp, I made it back to Williamsburg to help train my replacement After School coordinator, I nannied just enough to make gas and grocery money, I packed up a Jetta's worth of clothes and craft supplies... and this morning I woke up and it was time!

This year has been pretty hedonistic, as far as things go-- I've had pretty much nothing but fun in the hard-working kind of way. Wrote a thesis and earned my Master's, had a nice end to the school year, made great pay doing extremely fun lessons at my school's day camp, great summer at camp with my nose to the Texture Crafts grindstone, nannying at the beach for a week and then at home for two weeks while I extricated myself from the arms of my little After Schoolers. And now, the cherry on top of the fun-hard-work sundae. I woke up at Lauren's felt a little twinge of nervousness.

The drive went really smoothly-- it's all downhill, and I did a healthy percentage of it in neutral, my weighted-down car achieving previously impossible speeds as we flew down the mountains. When I arrived (there's always the OH JOY! when you turn onto Folk School Rd. and see the signs and the buildings but this time I also got to add HOME! to the mix) there was a handwritten sign on the door from my co-host, Jenna, asking me to come on up to the 2nd floor where we both live. The Jr. Host, or the one who is in her first 3 months, gets the host "room" and then becomes the Sr. Host when she's in her 4th-6th months and gets the host "apartment." That means Jenna had to vacate the room and move into the apartment this morning, and the host who was in the apartment has now finished his tenure and I am here instead, as the new Jr. Jenna and the two workstudy boys, strapping 18-year olds, helped me move all my stuff upstairs and into my room in about 15 minutes. And I was dreading hauling all that stuff upstairs on my own! Thanks, guys. It took the rest of the afternoon but I am completely unpacked and moved in and my empty suitcases are back in the truck of my car and I even nailed up hooks and whatnot and figured out (with Jenna's help) how to unlock the kitchen and make myself dinner. Fresh zucchini and squash, possibly from the garden, were already cut up in the industrial size walk-in fridge, and since Hosts are allowed to enter the kitchen and make/eat anything they can find. I sauteed those suckers up with a little pat of butter and some fresh parsley. Heaven.

I have a set of keys, a schedule, and a LOT of details to start remembering. Fortunately, I think, all the classes I was interested in this coming week are full so I'm going to focus my energy of just letting Jenna train me. It's probably a good thing. I brought several unfinished knitting projects; I have a scarf to cut off the loom, and I have several books I want to read. Plus, I'm going to take a bunch of pictures of my room and edit them into a video, and probably post it here. Tomorrow a new batch of students arrive (119, I think?) and I have a long day of watching Jenna's every move and trying to memorize them for next week. Oh god!

Now I'm off to the third floor where the work-studies live, to teach Barb from Vermont how to knit.
(To read about the last time I was at the Folk School, click here (4/08 Basketry)