A much overdue tale of the Camel Safari

The ad in the paper is what made it look interesting. Although,  I had probably seen some romantic footage on the television, of pyramids, camels, and a dusky sunset glittering on the black sand. It didn't occur to me that I was in India, and there wasn't going to be any Pyramids, or black sand out in the deserts by Jaisalmer. I just had a picture set in my mind, the very same kind of picture I'll remember today when I think of the camel safari, although that's not how it looked at all.

The train from Delhi to Jaisalmer took over 24 hours. I had decided that we were going to save some money and stay in third class. After all, there were what looked like bunk beds, you could sit, and the main difference between first class would have been a meal, a price tag, a blanket, and a regular seat. Well, that does sound like an awful lot, doesn't it. But, there we were, living the 'real' life, being 'real' and not so touristy, along with the other 20 or so tourists we happened to see in third class. It was going to be a thirll, an adventure, something to talk about, besides sounding like we had 'mommy and daddy'  pay for a round trip cruise to the 'Golden City' of Jaisalmer. And there we were with a small aisle inbetween a seating area on either side. To our lef there was a bench facing the aisle, the back of which could be lifted up and fastened with chains to become a hanging bunk, and an already mantled bunk above the bench. Three people were assigned to this area. Then on the right, one with two benches facing each other, and two beds hanging over them, so that you had to duck when you went to sit down. They backs of these benches also to be pulled out and up to make beds, when the hour arrived for sleeping. Of course, that seemed like it should have started the second we walked on at 5 am. But we weren't quite so rude as to shoo the others away to fix our beds. That, and rather than having three on each bench, we were squeezing together as five to a large seat.

watching myself grow

it's clear that it has been a long while since I have written on this space desginated to me. There's a part of me that doesn't want to write on the wall because I start to become self-conscious about who's reading this. At one point, I would write alot, and expect that at some point on or two of my friends would read this page, but now who knows. There might even be people reading who I've never met, and never will meet. This fear of returning to this page, of using it to write about my life and feelings, seems like it might say something about who I am becoming, or am. I have always been self-conscious, but as of late I have been very secluded, self-sufficient, and introverted.

I've been reading past posts, first from 2005, which now seems like a long time ago, and then from 2006.  Almost a whole year has gone by without my visiting this page. And amazingly it is still here. But what I really recognize is that I tend to want to be a bit outrageous when I write, I want to make it sound like a story, tell a tale, or feel literary as I write. Maybe a better word for it would be poetic. Yes, I want to be poetic. I want to write about the wonderful senstations and feelings that come across us in our every day lives. I want to share those, with people I don't know, with people I do know, or maybe with an imaginary audience. The brilliant thing about this blog is I could be writing for absolutely no one, and I would never know that no one had not read my blog. I can imagine that thousands of people have read the latest short story I have posted, and are amazed, and awed, and somewhere out there someone is penciling down my name to remember, just in case I "make it big." Or, if the post collects dust (as if it were a single forgotten piece of paper, or a book on a self), I will never know. I choose what happens to this post, to the extent that I can dream it up.

So, Yes... I want to be poetic. If you were one of those people who used to recieve my long emails, I remember that I would write about absurd things, I would write long entries. I wrote an email called, the land of the ever present sun; anoter, kittens in a glass cotainer (as a metaphor for loss); and the umbrella (a biting email about an 'angry' moment in which I had coincidentally lost my umbrella). I don't write like that anymore. I don't sit down to write with a desire to be a bit absurd.. but maybe this is slowly brining it back.

The Mad Hatter's Dash and Double Forntibras

What miserable seasons have passed. I've seen a seducing summer lure me into an entrapment of wild frenzies in which I thought my dream of returning to Norway was materializing on the horizon. I've had autumn rush by me leaving a few leaves on the ground, remnants of her awe stricking dress, which she never let us glimpse this year, although I hear tales of the red, yellow, and orange that adorns her. I've met winter's cold eye, and had him turn his back on me, so that neither fall nor cold would endorse the season, and often the weather has been wanting, and so I have I. It's been a time for waiting in no mans land, without a gun, without water, and a fear of enemies all around. The east coast is not for me, I look forward to my final adieu with it in July.

I should not speak so negatively. There are few people who do adorn my every day. Their smiles hang from the sunlight, their kind eyes bespeckle the skies, and their kind words have sown the soil I walk on, to make it seem less barren. They're still around, but very slowly they fade away as we prepare to seperate for the spring tidings in our own corners, our different schools, struggling with students left and right. I'll be quite on my own.

Not only am I on my own with the schools, I am left to my own thoughts and my own silence in my own apartment. I am relieved, for I can think of no better word, to be leaving this house. I have had it with this demonic place, Sartre's hell, where people hurt people, and the place itself appears decietfully peaceful. I'll be glad to be out of it's glare, out of the dirt that lingers in the house, that I've tried to scrub clean with soap, spounges, caring, empathy, and love. I'm tired of cleaning only to see it get dirtier every day. I'm tired of pretending that the floor sparkles when it is infested with grime. No matter how hard I try it won't and has not gotten better. So when I say I am leaving this place, it is not so much the house, or even the stupid floor that I had to endure that gives me a sense of relief to never face again, but rather the people. I've tired of trying to endure hate. As such, I now am moving on, to a small one bedroom apartment where I can live my quiet life of books, poetry, and lesson planning, and forget about the world around me. I don't want anything to do with it, unless I suddenly open my door and realize that it is not NY, but instead Bhutan, India, Oregon, Denmark, Spain, Nicaragua. Anywhere really... anywhere but this place. I can't harden myself to a small pit found in a peach, ready to be bitten into and harsh on seekers teeth. I've alwasy considered myself the peach itself, the core, hidden, inacessible, and yet if you ever get there I sure won't cut your tongue out, or chip your teeth in the process.

It shows that it hurts, and that I'm tired of it all when I can't face writing the truth and resort to metaphors. I hope you can read between the lines, or amuse yourself on my ridiculous analogies.

Two more days and I am officially moved. I'm not sure how to make it happen, but it will happen. Things are being packed. I am almost done. I am almost out of here.

In happier news, the next two weeks are what I call the Mad Hatter's dash. I'm craming in two papers in two weeks. I'm estimating writing 4 pages every day for the next two weeks to finish it up. Let's hope I can commit. At the same time I am also in workshops, and loving it. I'm currently in a Shakespeare and Company workshop. Today we danced the Pavanne. We studied faces, laughed, bounced balls off of each other, all the stress relief I needed. But the most amusing was the silent simulation of a scene from Shakespeare, impromptu style. What this means is that they call out a scene and we have seven counts to get into positions, as if we were about to act this scene. We did the last scene of Romeo and Juliet and had to construct the amnesty between the Montaigues and Capulets. At first we all decided to be tombstones. We tried two more times, and finally there was no Romeo nor Juliet visible in the scene, but quite a few mourners of a scene that didn't exist. We failed miserably. Finally we staged the final scene of Hamlet, and I charged in as Forntibras, only to bump heads with yet another person. We had two Forntibras, one on either end, charging into the scene. We were a load of giggles. I'm amused, not so good at making the scene amusing, but I am amused. And this was day one, three remaining. And only 48 hours until I am out of this house. Wish me luck.

In Four Days.

For all that I would like to remain ageless and forever young (or perhaps not), I now reveal with some relief my true age. I do want to grow old, and eventually pass. It's an odd thing to think about at 21, but here I am four days from my twenty second birthday and I have already decided to grow old. Maybe it is because I feel old already. I am sick of teenage girl back stabbing, of pettiness, of the inability of people to face up to the consequences of their actions. If you say something hurtful about someone, and never intended for them to hear it, but they do, you need to acknowledge this. You need to come clean, lying just makes it worse. Here I am intending to somehow feel older in four days, but right now I feel little more than dead. I am tired, I am perhaps a little over my head in trying to solve  the problems of the program, people not understanding the material, individualism becoming hurtful and competetive in an environment that needs community.  It's a little beyond me, even though I do not wish to admit it, that I cannot make everything right, and in doing so I risk to lose those around me.

I admit to having said foolish things that I should not have. I admit to having been angry and in frustration and fury nearly bitten my tongue off with horrid remarks. I regret having done this, letting anger be my venue for repressed feelings, and not dealing with them sooner in other ways.

...and yet for all this community talk, this idea of comradship I will ultimately be hypocritical and now speak only for myself and too myself: I need to take care of me, and my problems. If I don't do this I can't do anything for anyone else, and slowly the robbed pieces that I allow to be taken as I open up the vaults of emotions leave me to be a hollogram, intangible, ineffective, and perhaps forever a little less me and more repetetive. I need in four days to return to who I am, and see if there is still a twenty two year old in me who can meet the ultimate goal of aging and growing again.