9.29.2008
I could see the waves crashing below me, so far below. The fall would be long, like an eternity before death finally showed up. Laying awake in bed on Christmas Eve. At least if I missed all of the rocks somehow, I would die of hypothermia before I could escape. Something numb and new. Something less acute than the sting I always felt now. I wondered what I would think of on the way down? I wondered if I'd regret what I was doing, think that I didn't really want to die. I wondered if the whipping wind would burn my face and whether I would belly flop or dive in. I wondered how much a belly flop would hurt. I wondered if it would kill me. I wondered what it would be like to take the sail of a ship and parachute down. I wondered if it would drown me, pulling me under to drown in the frigid cold. I wondered if I would panic. I wiggled my my bare toes in the cold wind, brushed the bottoms of my feet against the cliff face where I sat. I looked down and got vertigo, and so I laid back and closed my eyes. One. Two. Three. When I opened my eyes again the grey clouds in the sky looked like a ship, a ship without sails. I smiled and shivered in the cold, and then I got up, and stared out across the ocean before I headed back to my car.
9.28.2008
I thought about it, the way the park was dusky and the fog was creeping in. It was like Carl Sandburg had said… It crept in, on little cat feet. It inched closer and closer but only just so minutely. I could barely tell, really. If the whole park had been in motion I wouldn’t have been able to, but the trees stood dead still and silent as the runners made clatter with their feet that I could hear on my bench. However close the fog was, I couldn’t feel it yet. That sensation of cold mist rushing over every bit of your exposed skin, caressing your face and eyelids and the inside of your nose as you inhaled, that was perfection. That was why I came to the park at dusk every night, waiting. I waited for the nights when the fog came, silently stalking the streets and through the trees, silently slipping around the moving cars, silently coming towards me.
5.08.2008
A reply:
5.06.2008
"I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation between us and everyone else on this planet. The President of the United States, a gondolier in Venice, just fill in the names. I find it A) extremely comforting that we're so close, and B) like Chinese water torture that we're so close because you have to find the right six people to make the right connection... I am bound to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people"
5.04.2008
To: Freeman-ASIA@iie.org
4.30.2008
They tell me New Hampshire is cold. They tell me it gets down to negative ten in the night, and that's normal, and we will wake up in the cold and dark stumbling on chilled hardwood and tile. I have said before I will refuse to get out of bed. I will bundle like a warm snowman in our down comforter and refuse to step foot onto the frosted pavement, ready to crack and heave from the chills. They tell me the snow gets up above two feet, and the banks from plowing become as tall as buildings. They tell me they're fun when you're young, but I'm not so little anymore. They tell me that the snow gets grimy and sludgy from the roads, and that it all turns black. They tell me it's cold and unpleasant, and they shovel in the middle of a snow storm to keep things "under control."
4.28.2008
Currently Listening To: Jack Johnson - Hope
Rainstar wraps herself in petals @ 10:23 AM
He must have been something special, to take my eyes off the fog, the way it swayed under the feet of runners. He was at least beautiful, with pale skin the color of mist and curly brown hair, but that wasn’t what caught my attention. The way he walked seemed like he wasn’t really moving at all. He came out of the fog seeming like a part of it, and maybe that’s what drew me in. For a second my eyes stared at his feet, and then they flickered up his legs and to his face. It was all a little mystical for me, like something out of a science fiction novel, or an eerie movie, the way my eyes honed in on him and my brain ignored the rest of what I was seeing.
Even though I could hear the steady pit-pat-pit-pat of the runner’s feet as they ran past him, I couldn’t hear the faintest sound of his feet on the ground. If they touched the ground at all. I wondered. My face must have been twisted up into a confused expression as he eclipsed the fog I watched so studiously, because for whatever reason he looked my way, and smiled a laughing smile. He didn’t know, I’m sure, that that brief moment was the closing point, the thing that sealed the deal. He didn’t know about my weakness for a crooked smile. He didn’t know me. Yet.
Rainstar wraps herself in petals @ 2:21 PM
Dear Brittany,
We’re glad to hear about your successful experience with your service project. While the project obviously helps our goals in promoting the program and study abroad to Asia, it is also intended to help award recipients reflect on their experiences by sharing them in a more formal way (than just through friends and family). Best wishes in your future endeavors.
Best regards,
Alyssa Yeng
Program Officer
Rainstar wraps herself in petals @ 1:43 PM
- John Guare
Do you think I'm connected to the emperor of Japan through six people? Are they people I met in Japan, or in America, or both?
Rainstar wraps herself in petals @ 10:18 AM
Hello! I studied in Japan spring 2007, and it was really fabulous. I did my service by going to various classes on campus and giving a talk and answering questions, and even though it felt like a hassle since my schedule was so busy, I just wanted to let you guys know how glad I am that I had to do it.
I was contacted by someone from one of the classes, and I ended up guiding him step-by-step through the application process to ISEP and to the school I studied at, Kansai Gaidai in Japan. He was accepted recently, and I just wanted to let those at Freeman Asia know how glad I am that I could help someone experience the same amazing things I did. I am writing to say thank you for requiring the service project, and thank you for helping me study in Japan - it was the most amazing experience of my life and I still have many friends there.
Worlds of thanks!
Brittany McBride
Rainstar wraps herself in petals @ 2:02 PM
Rainstar wraps herself in petals @ 10:06 AM
I am trying to clean and consolidate my things, in an effort to make moving easier. It's kind of difficult to decide what is necessary and what isn't. Everything has some kind of value to me.
I came across a lot of old letters from the first two years of my college career. It made me a little sad and nostalgic. I have grown apart from some people, changed in some ways, and grown stronger in others. It was good to see all of the people who took the time to write to me, and also sad to realize that I don't write to everyone anymore. I am a different person from who I used to be. More mature with different interests and tastes. I value certain things in people that I may not have cared about previously. Overall I am really very happy with who I am, but it still makes me sad to think that I've let my relationships with some important people lapse.
Perhaps not everyone finds letter writing as appealing as I do, but it's such a traditional communication form that it's so appealing - I mean it's been in existence so long it would be more than a shame to let it go. E-mail is no where near the same thing. It's tragic all the people who no longer write letters.
My room mates are constantly jealous of how many packages and letters I get from friends, or from doing swap-bot. It's a real shame that postage continues to go up. I won't send nearly so many letters when it starts costing 50 cents to send them. Letters aren't getting there any faster, but gas prices sure are sky rocketing. It seems that an increase would just push more and more people to abandon the mail system. Kind of tragic, but true.
There is still much to be thrown out and much to be done. I've taken a break from writing my picture book paper for Children's Literature and, unable to nap, have taken to cleaning... I wish New Hampshire weren't so far away, and so very cold. Thank goodness I am moving in the summer...
Rainstar wraps herself in petals @ 8:48 AM
// Blogger
