A grand wedding

A lesson I've just learned: even though Western NC is quite far away now, even though there may be a gas crisis, even though your car floods itself like an excited baby whale... it is always worth it to make the trip. This weekend we gladly packed up some pretty clothes (and a gift I've been working on for months) and drove south west to Asheville for Nathan & Suzannah's wedding. I didn't know much about what to expect, but there was no doubt in my mind that we were in for a beautiful, heartfelt, profoundly lovey-dovey wedding. And I was right!

Cutting the cake. Baked by Becah, photographed by Lola, and cut open by the happy couple:


The ceremony was awesome. We made a mansion of ribbons, each representing their loving intentions, for them to be married under:


We all worked to cook and lay out the main meals:




And at the end, we all threw origami balls up in the air and smacked them, releasing hundreds of paper butterflies.


Many more pictures of the whole dang first day (didn't bring the camera on day two) on Flickr.

Musings on a Wednesday evening

I have two big political blog entries stewing in my head, but now is not the time to write them. For now, I have a bowl of fat free ice cream (say nay all you like, naysayers, but it's good treat for me right now), and I just came back from Ellen's house and our grad-school-girls' knit night. Ellen has a hedgehog, which pooped on me (!). How many of you can say your left thigh has been the landing pad for a hedgehog turd? Anybody? That's what I thought.



Also, I coached a lot of kids through lots of grief today. Someone's best friend wanted to play with other people today, and many tears were shed. I felt like a very calm, wise saint as I gently rubbed backs and spoke softly of new friends who were surely right around the bend. Also, someone attempted to go across the big kids' monkey bars today, and almost made it, but fell right at the end. I did the same back rubbing routine while speaking softly (with much praise for simply trying!) about how big risks can come with great rewards as well as great sorrows.



I'm really liking the simple combination of me, my iPod, and my bicycle in the mornings. i finally figured out that I don't have to bike to work in my actual work clothes (which renders me sweaty and embarrassed when I arrive at work), and the freedom of biking in gym clothes makes me bike harder, faster, better. It feels awesome. Plus, the weather is finally showing mercy and cooling off-- oh my god, Fall, I can feel you right around the corner. Please, come soon.

I just stumbled across photographer Jenny Jimenez's website. If you live in Seattle, you should hire her, because I wish I could.

You're free, little pictures!

Oh my god. That took forever. Please, go look through my Ukraine pictures and make me feel like all that work was worthwhile.

Week 1: Arrival in Kiev, traveling to the Carpathians, rehearsing and playing around in Verkhovina


Week 2: Moving it back to the center of Ukraine, living in Kovalin and roaming around to lots of small "museums."


Week 3: Finishing up our homestays, moving to Vorzel (outside Kiev), big times in the big city

Back from Ukraine!

A month of no posts can only mean great adventures have been had. Right? I'm in an internet cafe in the Detroit airport, and my head is appropriately swimming with those pseudo-profound thoughts that come from being half way between big things in your life and also halfway in between actual days. Our trip to Ukraine offered all those classic bonding opportunities that get a group to really come together-- feeling quite moved, feeling lost, feeling gratitude and excitement and working hard to make good music together and all the other things that happen when you travel-- and I know that at this point, I really wouldn't be doing anyone any service by attempting to offer a summation of the trip, mainly because I'm not yet feeling fully back yet and one needs a bit of distance to know what one really came away from the experience with, you know? Hmm, that was a long and complicated sentance. The woman across from me is wearing a pink zipper jacket with "Mrs. Dessert" in calligraphic script across the back. Maybe I'm still in Ukraine...

There are a few reflections I can attempt to put down now, since I've done explored this side of the airport already and I still have at least an hour to kill in this sunny little corner before flying back to the city of my birth. Hokay! Let's see. I already wrote to Asa and told him this, but I shall say again: earlier this morning/last night on the overnight flight, I woke up in a daze to the comforting sound of him & Diana gossiping together in the seats behind me, and I sort of smiled to find myself back on the Sheep Mobile, heading to another concert... until I realized that it was not them, that they weren't there, and that I wasn't back in the van (that part wasn't so sad). But I sort of realized that what being home means is that I won't wake up to find my 12 friends wandering all over whatever series of homes we've invaded and trying to suss out the plan for the day. I miss you already, friends.

[and can I say, just quickly, how much more compounded my thoughts are due to this Ukraine experience following an intense 5 weeks of summer camp? It's been a long, nomadic summer full of all sorts of interesting and shifting social situations.]

Another thing I want to get down, mostly for my own sake, is this newfound motivation I feel to make lists and then get them done. Just a general life-organizing and the desire to (in Deva's words) ban the words 'I used to be able to' from my vocabulary. So I'm really going to try to get a Rosetta Stone program, try for a higher level of fluency in any of the languages I've half-assedly started to learn; also get back into belly dance; also join the yoga studio down the street; also send more letters and mix-tapes and care packages to friends (I started that one already this summer, to great satisfaction. Right, Jordan and Lauren?). Also travel more within the States and see the people who(m) I miss. Granted, this is all sort of laughable with the omnipresent Thesis looming ahead plus having a full time, 5-days a week job, but at this point in my sleep-deprevity (is that a word?) I feel like making that list anyway. I guess what I feel is a great sense of potential re: the nearish future.

Um, what else. I rediscovered through traveling again that yup, I still really do like myself. A work in progress, certainly, and there are lots of nit-picky details I could get into, but overall I'm pretty proud to be who I am. So, that's something. Surely, if one can pick up and land in another place with a bunch of strangers and come out the other side with warm fuzzy feelings and a greater sense of self, one is on the right path. Right?

Okay. Off to the plane. Lots of love and LOTS of pictures coming soonish.

Just quickly

Chilly, quit commenting on my blog and go make me my free mix already. And as for Dr. Horrible, may I just say that I've been singing the soundtrack for a good week now?

Bad horse, bad horse, bad horse, bad horse!
He rides across the nation, the thoroughbred of sin...

Ok, off to the beach.

Musings on being done with camp (for the year)

Hmm. It's sad because:
1. I'll miss my friends there.
2. I'll miss having funny/moving/wacko conversations with kids.
3. Truth be told, as much as I moan about it, I love having meals prepared for me, and now I have to cook for myself again, which also means buying groceries again, which brings me to...
4. I'll miss not ever, ever touching my wallet all week long. Nothing to buy, no bills (well, kinda), no real-world worries.
5. I kinda like forgetting about my cell phone, and now that it's back in my life I'm feeling a bit begrudging of it.
6. No more mountain air, mountain sunrises and sunsets, mountain trails, or campfire smells. :(
7. No more tie-dyed hands!!!

It's okay because:
1. I know I'll be back again next year.
2. Now I can eat or not eat, depending on when I'm hungry or not, instead of being all Pavlovian and just salivating at the sound of a bell.
3. I'm back in the world of Movies! iTunes! Free time!
4. Also, a Boyfriend!
5. I get to finally shut up and work on getting my voice back before I head off on...
6. My 3 week trip to Eastern Europe to study folk music! Tre exotique!
7. No more tie-dyed hands!!!

So, because I can, and because (frankly) I find all-text entries to be boring and a bit undermining of the magnificent MacBook I currently have superheating my legs, please enjoy a few choice photos documenting my time at camp this year.

How about some stuff I made?
A batiked top, in plum, wisteria, and midnight blue:


A detail from a batiked bandana:


The discovery class that I led, polymer clay, made things to stick to glass votives:


And I made the perfect cerulean blue flowers to stick to these wasabi-colored beads:


I found a camp bed-sized sheet and batiked leaves down each side. Then I was extra warm at night.


I batiked a skirt! My first real successful 2-layer batik. First wax on white, then dye the whole thing bright-ass orange, then waxing new lines and dyeing the whole thing a slightly darker orange. I looooove it.


Ah, Shibori headscarves. The staple of the crafts world at camp. The one on the left is shibori-dyed rainbow stripes (I didn't twist hard enough), the one on the right I dyed in greens and then waxed like crazy and dyed deep navy.


HOORAY for my 1st semi-solid yarn dying job! I really like how these came out. Did you know you can order undyed Wildfoote yarn from dharmatrading.com? And tons of other brand name yarns as well, come to that. I mean, I already know what I'm doing next summer.


And I only finished one knitted project while at camp. Presenting a scarf for one of you men in my life, but you won't find out who until Xmas. So quit thinking about it.

Click on the title of this entry to go to my Flickr stream and see more, or larger pics.

It's been awhile...

Sorry, blog. Camp is working out just fine, with the usual minor irritants and the major fun. Nights and evenings off with friends are what keeps me going, as well as campfires at night when I finally get to sit down and knit. The kids this session are pretty much fine. A lot of my old faves are back to work as SITs (which is nuts) and it's great to hear their memories of being a kid here. I'm just a little down these days because we had a tragedy in the community (a very special baby died), and the Bong Tree is, as usual, a major time suck (one of the busiest places at camp, and the kids love it, so it's worth it). I'm just up there allllll day long.

More soon! Tomorrow is our big USA celebration, and we're all prepping for that. So! Gotta go prep the Treasure Boxes for afternoon classes. More soon. I have written, I just haven't uploded.

monday update

Monday, June 16, 2008

Holy crap. Remind me never to miss the first session again. My poor replacement. She comes in knowing nothing about the millions of intricacies necessary to keeping sane in the crafts cabin, and (seemingly) she gets little help in how to run things. I show up a week later and my whole staff is stressed and mutinous. I think we’re turning things around now; we’ve had two really successful days in a row and I’m quickly identifying what needs to change and what we can improve upon from last year.

THERE ARE SO MANY PEOPLE HERE WHOM I DO NOT KNOW. This feels so, so strange, akin to waking up at a sleepover and realizing you’re in the wrong house. Or something. I hope that I get to know most of them over the next four weeks, but in truth, I doubt I will. My job keeps me pretty isolated and I’m so happy to see the dozen or so old friends that I have here, I just feel little motivation to play the new counselor game.

Oh! I’m teaching yoga at 7:30am every day. Well, so far. I’m replacing one of the best yoga teachers I’ve ever known (Susan), who starts a very slow, very deliberate practice for anyone who wants to join at 6:45am—I cannot do what she does, nor am I willing to try and replicate that, so I’ll be doing faster paced and must less accurate yoga for thirty minutes before the breakfast bell. At 7am, I alternate swimming laps in the lake and jogging around the farm every other day. Tomorrow is a swimming morning. Hooray!

The kitchen has been laaaaaame so far. Where are the veggies?? Today I think there might have been some broccoli under the cream sauce, but for the most part—ugh. Too many carbs, not enough proof that we have an actual farm and we grow actual tons of food. And there hasn't been enough of the food, which is adding insult to injury. Hmm and arghh.

It’s late. I’m outta here. More updates later.

friday update

Friday, June 13, 2008:

Arrival! Picked up the rental car this morning and packed it up, then drove over to the elementary graduation ceremony, which was heartwarmingly sincere and really helped add a feeling of closure to the school year. I feel really honored to be a part of this community. After the ceremony I jumped in the car and aimed it West. 8 hours later I’m driving through Brevard, and am so ridiculously pleased to be back that even the Big Kmart looks rosy-hued.

I’m in Tajar, the staff cabin, which is excellent, but am directly across the hall from D., who has been playing the same song on her keyboard and commenting aloud to herself for—checking watch—about 90 minutes now. Oh well, it’s only 5 weeks, and I’ve put up with her for longer than that. It’s weird to be in the “new” Tajar, since the old one made such an impression on me in 2001 (I think?).

So far haven’t seen many peers, but have come across a group of teens that used to be campers (and are now on Riverside) and another group of teens that used to be campers (and are now SITs). Where is Laurie? Where is Lilla? Where are Michael and Sunee?

Walked up to the Bong Tree in the gathering nightfall and just stood there with a giant grin on my face—just me, the moths circling crazily around the florescents, and the tools of my trade—staring at the tie-dyes we made last year and the batiks and the buckets of dye that has (miracle of miracles!) already been set up and organized. [Sometimes I love getting to camp a week late.]

To return to a place you love very much: that is a delicious feeling. When your feet stop on their own in the middle of the path so that you can listen closely and smell the smells and bask in the mountain range lit by moonlight—that’s how you know you’ve found a special place. Gwynn Valley, you are my love.

Thursday mutterings

To put in the car:

Box of camp clothes
Backpack w/ Ukraine stuff
3 bags of knitting projects
Laundry bag full of shoes
Toiletries bag
Computer
purse
bag o' groceries: mineral water, popcorn, lunchbox of cheese & snacks
Bags of glass votives for discovery project