"I was going to get a long dress...but I`m going to wear a short dress to prom this year, because my legs look freaking awesome right now!"
14 teenage girls. A 14,000 foot pass. 7 days of backpacking. 50 pound packs.
In whatever way that they value their experience, whether they ever do it again, this is something that can never be taken away from them.
Monday, April 12, 2010
On Alfombras and Aprovecharing...
I have a number of blogs entries to catch up on...and we`ve been far too balls to the wall for me to take the time. But now I`m in Cusco on some time off, so here goes with a massive catch up.
I haven`t been that stressed since college. Those of you who were there with me remember the high level of adrenaline pumping around 11pm..the sick feeling that your night was just getting started, and the giddy dread induced by trying stock of what you needed to do. We were trying to get grades done, comments written, midterm feedback sessions completed, and then ourselves and the girls packed and out the door for a 7 day backpacking trip over a 14,000 foot pass. And then we had a discipline incident, a dislocated finger, and two projectile vomiters to contend with. Had the girls been that loaded down, we would have slowed down, taken a breath. But because it was teachers, and especially me, the masochist in me was winning out - pushing myself to suck it up and keep working. There`s some dogged martyrdom that happens with TTS teachers - strong women, compensating for something as we push ourselves through self-sacrificing.
We woke up on Friday morning with coffee breath and groggy eyes. My Spanish class was studying el preterito...and I realized it was Good Friday. Kicking myself, I had the girls drop their books, and head out the door. One block down from our hostel the street was blocked off and buzzing...and dozens of people were ont heir hands and knees with chalk and brilliantly colored sawdust making giant alfombras - huge colorful murals that span the street, pictures of Jesus on the cross, grapes, wheat, a cup filled with wine. Their spontaneous assignment was to learn the history of Good Friday and the alfombras and they giddily fanned out, in the somewhat sheepish and excited TTS style.
Bouncing between groups, I happened back upon one of my students barely able to speak. A family had invited the girls to help them make the alfombra with them.
In the next ten minutes, we had cancelled classes and pushed our backpacking trip back a day. Each of us breathed easier. When the decision was made it was so obvious what had needed to happen. The girls spent four hours pouring little bits of sawdust on the road, chatting with this family, laughing hysterically to each other that they might see photos of alfombras in their history textbook - but instead, here they were...making them.
This is education. Every time we take ourselves too seriously, an opportunity like this comes and nips me gently, reminds me that this is why we`re here.
Five hours later, a procession came through, trampling the alfombras. Our painstakingly crafted mural was stomped and blended and blurred by the feet of those carrying the weight of saints and Christ figures on their shoulders. It was momentary, our experience. For what else can we be living, but in this moment? For what else can we seize, but what is right now, around us?
In Spanish, there is a word "aprovechar". We have no such word in the English language - but it roughly means "to take advantage of" or "to seize an opportunity". Education is all around us, so long as we are out of the classroom and open enough to aprovechar it.
I haven`t been that stressed since college. Those of you who were there with me remember the high level of adrenaline pumping around 11pm..the sick feeling that your night was just getting started, and the giddy dread induced by trying stock of what you needed to do. We were trying to get grades done, comments written, midterm feedback sessions completed, and then ourselves and the girls packed and out the door for a 7 day backpacking trip over a 14,000 foot pass. And then we had a discipline incident, a dislocated finger, and two projectile vomiters to contend with. Had the girls been that loaded down, we would have slowed down, taken a breath. But because it was teachers, and especially me, the masochist in me was winning out - pushing myself to suck it up and keep working. There`s some dogged martyrdom that happens with TTS teachers - strong women, compensating for something as we push ourselves through self-sacrificing.
We woke up on Friday morning with coffee breath and groggy eyes. My Spanish class was studying el preterito...and I realized it was Good Friday. Kicking myself, I had the girls drop their books, and head out the door. One block down from our hostel the street was blocked off and buzzing...and dozens of people were ont heir hands and knees with chalk and brilliantly colored sawdust making giant alfombras - huge colorful murals that span the street, pictures of Jesus on the cross, grapes, wheat, a cup filled with wine. Their spontaneous assignment was to learn the history of Good Friday and the alfombras and they giddily fanned out, in the somewhat sheepish and excited TTS style.
Bouncing between groups, I happened back upon one of my students barely able to speak. A family had invited the girls to help them make the alfombra with them.
In the next ten minutes, we had cancelled classes and pushed our backpacking trip back a day. Each of us breathed easier. When the decision was made it was so obvious what had needed to happen. The girls spent four hours pouring little bits of sawdust on the road, chatting with this family, laughing hysterically to each other that they might see photos of alfombras in their history textbook - but instead, here they were...making them.
This is education. Every time we take ourselves too seriously, an opportunity like this comes and nips me gently, reminds me that this is why we`re here.
Five hours later, a procession came through, trampling the alfombras. Our painstakingly crafted mural was stomped and blended and blurred by the feet of those carrying the weight of saints and Christ figures on their shoulders. It was momentary, our experience. For what else can we be living, but in this moment? For what else can we seize, but what is right now, around us?
In Spanish, there is a word "aprovechar". We have no such word in the English language - but it roughly means "to take advantage of" or "to seize an opportunity". Education is all around us, so long as we are out of the classroom and open enough to aprovechar it.
On receiving mail in Cusco...
So I am sitting in my little tourist haven in Cusco, a place familiar to me now as a little refuge of self-indulgent coffee shop thought.
I just received your letters. It was like taking a walk with each one of you, maybe sitting at Wednesday night dinner, maybe climbing a tree and chatting, maybe sitting on the eastern prom and looking out over the ocean. Thank you so much! I laughed and cried and looked like a total ass in the middle of gringo-land, Peru.
I can`t believe how lucky I am to have each of you in my life, that it mattered enough to you to write. So here`s to nights philosophizing, 80`s dancing, drinking beer, dirty-dancing, ritualizing, papier-macheing, cooking, growing things, getting dirty, being dirtier, playing frisbee, skinny-dipping, rope-swinging. Drinking wine, dressing up, dressing down, hiking, camping.
Hooolly shit. I am so excited to be here, and excited to be home. All my love to each of you.
I just received your letters. It was like taking a walk with each one of you, maybe sitting at Wednesday night dinner, maybe climbing a tree and chatting, maybe sitting on the eastern prom and looking out over the ocean. Thank you so much! I laughed and cried and looked like a total ass in the middle of gringo-land, Peru.
I can`t believe how lucky I am to have each of you in my life, that it mattered enough to you to write. So here`s to nights philosophizing, 80`s dancing, drinking beer, dirty-dancing, ritualizing, papier-macheing, cooking, growing things, getting dirty, being dirtier, playing frisbee, skinny-dipping, rope-swinging. Drinking wine, dressing up, dressing down, hiking, camping.
Hooolly shit. I am so excited to be here, and excited to be home. All my love to each of you.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Cake for thought?
Oh hey friends,
Intrepid Traveling School returns...emotional roller coaster of teenage girls continues. We just spent 8 days in the Galapagos Islands, on a boat. Our days were packed - morning and afternoon hikes on sun baked lava islands. The wildlife there has never evolved a fear of humans, as it has been in a protected state since within a hundred years of human settlement. As a result, one walks along the rocky paths stepping around sea lions, huge marine iguanas, next to hanging branches where the blue-footed booby and its mate sit and tend their eggs.
I could write to you about evolution. I could write to you about what I think it means for us as a species to have technologized past our limiting factors, or the fact that our carrying capacity was met somewhere around 300 years ago. I could compare that to the rapid evolution that I saw on the islands. But that´s a topic for another day.
I´ll write to you instead about birthday cake.
One of my students turned 17 while on the Galapagos. Because our school comes into the Galapagos with a contract from the owners of the boats reading that we are an " exclusive and important" high school from the United States, we got the royal treatment. The crew baked a massive cake - larger than an average cake in the US. Homemade, frosted by hand.
The first comments out of my students mouths were excitement about finally being able to get as big a piece as they could possibly eat. There was much posturing for the receiving of their piece, argument over the biggest pieces, and finally a blow up surrounding not getting a strawberry on top of a particular piece. Ultimately, the girls dove in for seconds before offering firsts to our crew.
I was livid. I don´t get mad often, and this incident set me over the edge. I retreated to my cabin, shaking and in tears, trying to figure out how to address my group.
I write this not to complain about my students but instead to reflect on myself, and on the culture that we generate as a group when people from the United States travel together. I find that we often take more than we need, more than we want even, for the sake of making sure that we have enough. We are threatened by scarcity, by the stress that eventually we might run out. Therefore, it is necessary to take as much as we can in this moment - to store, to horde, even to the detriment of those around us.
And I realized that this comes out of seeing our world as consumable. Wade Davis, National Geographic write and cultural anthropologist talks about how a child in the Andes is raised to see the mountains around them as apus, or mountain spirits. The divine exists within them. A child in Montana (referring to himself), on the other hand, is raised to see the mountains as a resource to be mined.
Which one is right? Both can be true. It has nothing to do with whether or not the mountains "really do" have gods in them. It is instead prescriptive of the way that we see the environment around us. And if we see our mountains as resources to be mined, then of course we live in subconscious fear of hte fact that some day they will be gone. How can we attach ourselves to a place spiritually, really, if we know that due to our very own pursuits of life it may someday be gone?
So I think about a world of scarcity, and a world of abundance. What is the fundamental basis of our existence? And if it is scarcity, is it possible to retrain ourselves in our deepest inner core that indeed there is a way of living that will in fact provide enough?
Hmmm. Cake for thought?
Intrepid Traveling School returns...emotional roller coaster of teenage girls continues. We just spent 8 days in the Galapagos Islands, on a boat. Our days were packed - morning and afternoon hikes on sun baked lava islands. The wildlife there has never evolved a fear of humans, as it has been in a protected state since within a hundred years of human settlement. As a result, one walks along the rocky paths stepping around sea lions, huge marine iguanas, next to hanging branches where the blue-footed booby and its mate sit and tend their eggs.
I could write to you about evolution. I could write to you about what I think it means for us as a species to have technologized past our limiting factors, or the fact that our carrying capacity was met somewhere around 300 years ago. I could compare that to the rapid evolution that I saw on the islands. But that´s a topic for another day.
I´ll write to you instead about birthday cake.
One of my students turned 17 while on the Galapagos. Because our school comes into the Galapagos with a contract from the owners of the boats reading that we are an " exclusive and important" high school from the United States, we got the royal treatment. The crew baked a massive cake - larger than an average cake in the US. Homemade, frosted by hand.
The first comments out of my students mouths were excitement about finally being able to get as big a piece as they could possibly eat. There was much posturing for the receiving of their piece, argument over the biggest pieces, and finally a blow up surrounding not getting a strawberry on top of a particular piece. Ultimately, the girls dove in for seconds before offering firsts to our crew.
I was livid. I don´t get mad often, and this incident set me over the edge. I retreated to my cabin, shaking and in tears, trying to figure out how to address my group.
I write this not to complain about my students but instead to reflect on myself, and on the culture that we generate as a group when people from the United States travel together. I find that we often take more than we need, more than we want even, for the sake of making sure that we have enough. We are threatened by scarcity, by the stress that eventually we might run out. Therefore, it is necessary to take as much as we can in this moment - to store, to horde, even to the detriment of those around us.
And I realized that this comes out of seeing our world as consumable. Wade Davis, National Geographic write and cultural anthropologist talks about how a child in the Andes is raised to see the mountains around them as apus, or mountain spirits. The divine exists within them. A child in Montana (referring to himself), on the other hand, is raised to see the mountains as a resource to be mined.
Which one is right? Both can be true. It has nothing to do with whether or not the mountains "really do" have gods in them. It is instead prescriptive of the way that we see the environment around us. And if we see our mountains as resources to be mined, then of course we live in subconscious fear of hte fact that some day they will be gone. How can we attach ourselves to a place spiritually, really, if we know that due to our very own pursuits of life it may someday be gone?
So I think about a world of scarcity, and a world of abundance. What is the fundamental basis of our existence? And if it is scarcity, is it possible to retrain ourselves in our deepest inner core that indeed there is a way of living that will in fact provide enough?
Hmmm. Cake for thought?
Thursday, March 11, 2010
mind flood.
Hi all,
Last night, we experienced a flash flood in our little jungle hostel. We´re all fine - no panicking! but I bring it up because it´s symbolic of much something much larger.
The weather went from sunshine to pouring in about 15 minutes. 15 minutes after that, I was deep in conversation with a student, looked over to see the river swelling above its banks and realized that we were going to see the river flood.
From there, in a matter of a half an hour, the river rose 10 feet from its base level. I went to retrieve our students from their rooms, and found myself wading in water up to my waist. It was not rushing, no current, just pouring up and into the jungle around us. All of the houses here are built on stilts for exactly this reason, but when the river started to reach the floor of our dining area, we moved the girls to higher ground.
This is the first time the people who work here remember seeing the river flood like this. About an hour later, the rain slowed and the river retreated. We had dinner, and things are back to normal - a bit muddy, plants in disarray, but none the worse for the wear.
I had two major thought processes while this was happening. The first was that I would have had no way of differentiating this periodic flooding that happens here from a more significant weather event. I wondered what people think, when they´re caught in a natural disaster, as it begins. They must of course think that the river will go down soon, the rain will stop.
This morning when we woke up we had no water because sand had gotten into the water tank. With our 20 people, in a matter of 3 hours, our toilets backed up. What happens when thousands of people are together for days on end, no water? We still shit.
The second thought process was that this is climate change. This is nature, powerful, stretching its arms, warning us of what´s to calm as our sea levels rise and our wind currents shift and our temperatures increase. It was this thought, above all else, that threatened to pull me from my hyper-aware state - heightened by the added responsibility of looking out for 16 teenage girls. It made me want to cry, to drop to my knees, to find some sort of faith, to bargain, to plead. It scared me, not because I thought we were in danger last night...but instead because I really didn`t know what we were starting to see when the water rose. And it continues to scare me, not because I think our immediate safety is threatened, but because I really don`t know what we will see in the next year, five years, ten years.
We visited a petroleum company´s extraction site during our trip deep into the selva. Clean. Responsible. Informed. Those are the words that come to mind upon our tour. We met with the chief environmental manager, who explained to us in detail all of the techyniques they use for minimizing impact on the environment. As one of my students put it - these are just men who need a good job to feed their families. They are doing what they can to protect the environment in which each of them grew up.
We look for a scapegoat...for someone to blame when we hear about the destruction of the rainforest or the changing climate. It would be so much easier if we had seen giant pits, scars in the earth from open oil wells. But "We have met the enemy and it is us"...that quote comes to mind, as we realize that the magnitude of these operations, the cultural devastation of the indigenous people in the area, the 1000% increase in cancer rates comes not from the malice of an individual oil engineer, or even the evil machine of a particular oil company but instead from the monstrous demand that we generate in our country.
25% of the world´s oil. That´s how much we consume in the United States. I am shaken in these last few days here - surrounded by the lungs of the world, the diverse natural environment that can literally breathe off of our waste product...the intricacies, the integration of species...
To walk in the jungle in the dark is to get the sense that you have missed something your whole life. Its the hold-your-breath feeling, because it might fade away if you try to hold on to it for too long. It is too recognize for a brief moment that we are at the mercy of this world around us, to give the power over, to for a second not struggle to control...instead to let yourself be all you can be, all you should be. Which is enough, and not too much.
Much love to all of you. Random spewing of thoughts. Not enough time. Will try to write more soon.
Heather
Last night, we experienced a flash flood in our little jungle hostel. We´re all fine - no panicking! but I bring it up because it´s symbolic of much something much larger.
The weather went from sunshine to pouring in about 15 minutes. 15 minutes after that, I was deep in conversation with a student, looked over to see the river swelling above its banks and realized that we were going to see the river flood.
From there, in a matter of a half an hour, the river rose 10 feet from its base level. I went to retrieve our students from their rooms, and found myself wading in water up to my waist. It was not rushing, no current, just pouring up and into the jungle around us. All of the houses here are built on stilts for exactly this reason, but when the river started to reach the floor of our dining area, we moved the girls to higher ground.
This is the first time the people who work here remember seeing the river flood like this. About an hour later, the rain slowed and the river retreated. We had dinner, and things are back to normal - a bit muddy, plants in disarray, but none the worse for the wear.
I had two major thought processes while this was happening. The first was that I would have had no way of differentiating this periodic flooding that happens here from a more significant weather event. I wondered what people think, when they´re caught in a natural disaster, as it begins. They must of course think that the river will go down soon, the rain will stop.
This morning when we woke up we had no water because sand had gotten into the water tank. With our 20 people, in a matter of 3 hours, our toilets backed up. What happens when thousands of people are together for days on end, no water? We still shit.
The second thought process was that this is climate change. This is nature, powerful, stretching its arms, warning us of what´s to calm as our sea levels rise and our wind currents shift and our temperatures increase. It was this thought, above all else, that threatened to pull me from my hyper-aware state - heightened by the added responsibility of looking out for 16 teenage girls. It made me want to cry, to drop to my knees, to find some sort of faith, to bargain, to plead. It scared me, not because I thought we were in danger last night...but instead because I really didn`t know what we were starting to see when the water rose. And it continues to scare me, not because I think our immediate safety is threatened, but because I really don`t know what we will see in the next year, five years, ten years.
We visited a petroleum company´s extraction site during our trip deep into the selva. Clean. Responsible. Informed. Those are the words that come to mind upon our tour. We met with the chief environmental manager, who explained to us in detail all of the techyniques they use for minimizing impact on the environment. As one of my students put it - these are just men who need a good job to feed their families. They are doing what they can to protect the environment in which each of them grew up.
We look for a scapegoat...for someone to blame when we hear about the destruction of the rainforest or the changing climate. It would be so much easier if we had seen giant pits, scars in the earth from open oil wells. But "We have met the enemy and it is us"...that quote comes to mind, as we realize that the magnitude of these operations, the cultural devastation of the indigenous people in the area, the 1000% increase in cancer rates comes not from the malice of an individual oil engineer, or even the evil machine of a particular oil company but instead from the monstrous demand that we generate in our country.
25% of the world´s oil. That´s how much we consume in the United States. I am shaken in these last few days here - surrounded by the lungs of the world, the diverse natural environment that can literally breathe off of our waste product...the intricacies, the integration of species...
To walk in the jungle in the dark is to get the sense that you have missed something your whole life. Its the hold-your-breath feeling, because it might fade away if you try to hold on to it for too long. It is too recognize for a brief moment that we are at the mercy of this world around us, to give the power over, to for a second not struggle to control...instead to let yourself be all you can be, all you should be. Which is enough, and not too much.
Much love to all of you. Random spewing of thoughts. Not enough time. Will try to write more soon.
Heather
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Update
Hi all,
This job is challenging me in a way that I haven´t yet experienced. Today, I am in love with the opportunity. Yesterday, I was worried that maybe my perspectives have come too far from the mainstream, and that maybe working with teenagers fresh out of high school is not where I´m meant to be.
I`m struggling so much with how to facilitate the conversations...moving away from the superficial connections and obsessions with technology, the clique'ness of teenage girls, the back-stabbing cattiness that so stereotypes females. We have had to work so hard, and so intentionally with this group as they broaden their awareness from an individual perspective to a broadened look at how to take into account the needs of the group first. Its little things like not taking the largest piece of bread if you´re the first person in line, picking up after each other, supporting the last person in line. Why is it so difficult for those coming from our society to broaden our focus - to see the community as what suports the individual?
We are in the middle of our homestays in a rural indigenous village. We have been wrestling with a definition of poverty, and true to my background and permaculture slant, I´ve laid heavily into the idea of self-sufficiency. But its gone a bit too far, as the girls are now at the point of talking about how happy people are in their poverty, romanticizing the notion of subsistence farming. I find myself frustrated at trying to figure out how to find the balance of both. I want them to recognize that the individuals of this community are empowered, but also struggle, deeply. I want them to see how romanticizing it lets ourselves offf the hook as consumers, materialists, participants in a global economy.
What else can I tell you? We`ve toured a rose plantation, gone to an indigenous wedding, visited the middle of the world, weeded for hours, had history class on the steps of the capital building in Quito, re-invented the scientific method to understand it as CURIOSITY FIRST (about the world around us)...i´m often quoted as saying ¨This is absolutely fascinating!¨and ¨Negative ghost-writer¨...We`re studying dollarization in Math Apps, and language diversity in Spanish. The girls are learning Kichwa phrases, we hiked a river bed to a waterfall in the cloud forest...oh so much. I forget that this is my day to day existence here. It becomes so normal, so intense, that the day to day drama of the fact that theres not enough tuna for everyone at lunch is hugely signficant, because it seems like what we can control. So in writing this I guess I talk myself to the point of realizing that to me there is nothing more important that I can be doing right now, but in depth working with the girls who have chosen to step out. For whatever reason, they´ve decided that they´re looking for something else. They dont entirely know what yet, or why. Hence the purpose of the blog perhaps, to think, deeply. To dig.
What more can I be than entirely present?
All my love to all of you.
Heather
p.s. photos!
http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/sharing/slideshowFinishPage.jsp?token=573930898805%3A435148606
This job is challenging me in a way that I haven´t yet experienced. Today, I am in love with the opportunity. Yesterday, I was worried that maybe my perspectives have come too far from the mainstream, and that maybe working with teenagers fresh out of high school is not where I´m meant to be.
I`m struggling so much with how to facilitate the conversations...moving away from the superficial connections and obsessions with technology, the clique'ness of teenage girls, the back-stabbing cattiness that so stereotypes females. We have had to work so hard, and so intentionally with this group as they broaden their awareness from an individual perspective to a broadened look at how to take into account the needs of the group first. Its little things like not taking the largest piece of bread if you´re the first person in line, picking up after each other, supporting the last person in line. Why is it so difficult for those coming from our society to broaden our focus - to see the community as what suports the individual?
We are in the middle of our homestays in a rural indigenous village. We have been wrestling with a definition of poverty, and true to my background and permaculture slant, I´ve laid heavily into the idea of self-sufficiency. But its gone a bit too far, as the girls are now at the point of talking about how happy people are in their poverty, romanticizing the notion of subsistence farming. I find myself frustrated at trying to figure out how to find the balance of both. I want them to recognize that the individuals of this community are empowered, but also struggle, deeply. I want them to see how romanticizing it lets ourselves offf the hook as consumers, materialists, participants in a global economy.
What else can I tell you? We`ve toured a rose plantation, gone to an indigenous wedding, visited the middle of the world, weeded for hours, had history class on the steps of the capital building in Quito, re-invented the scientific method to understand it as CURIOSITY FIRST (about the world around us)...i´m often quoted as saying ¨This is absolutely fascinating!¨and ¨Negative ghost-writer¨...We`re studying dollarization in Math Apps, and language diversity in Spanish. The girls are learning Kichwa phrases, we hiked a river bed to a waterfall in the cloud forest...oh so much. I forget that this is my day to day existence here. It becomes so normal, so intense, that the day to day drama of the fact that theres not enough tuna for everyone at lunch is hugely signficant, because it seems like what we can control. So in writing this I guess I talk myself to the point of realizing that to me there is nothing more important that I can be doing right now, but in depth working with the girls who have chosen to step out. For whatever reason, they´ve decided that they´re looking for something else. They dont entirely know what yet, or why. Hence the purpose of the blog perhaps, to think, deeply. To dig.
What more can I be than entirely present?
All my love to all of you.
Heather
p.s. photos!
http://www.koda
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
se va
Alright everyone - we're off! 16 girls, four teachers, 7 group gear bags, 6 tents, 60 packets of Emergen-C, 64 polypro shirts, etcetera etcetera etcetera later...
We arrive in Quito at 7:30pm tonight and begin with a half day of classes tomorrow.
I'll send along a snail mail address and a shameless plug as soon as I have it! Much love to all of you.
We arrive in Quito at 7:30pm tonight and begin with a half day of classes tomorrow.
I'll send along a snail mail address and a shameless plug as soon as I have it! Much love to all of you.
Friday, January 22, 2010
written awhile ago...
We
We who are the prodigious children of the 80’s
Progeny of the Baby Boomers
Well-bred
Well read
Well educated on the thoughts of rich white men
We have been provided with the teats of an economic boom
Suckling lulls us to sleep
Snoring even as we eat
We have a hard time spurning the milk we were raised on.
And we yearn for revolution
We yearn for the day that life is so intolerable that we pack our bags and head for the train station
Buy a ticket to who-the-hell-knows
Fast.
Sleep on bus station floors next to the homeless philosopher and pastor bum
From whom we will learn life’s secrets,
to whom we will confess the matter of our privilege
And curled up with the pile of dirt from the push broom’s ceaseless sweeping
We are worried that this hurt is perhaps what we deserve
But we’ll never say it because we are the Ivy educated golden but decimated
children of the 80’s.
Finding ourselves. Finding our spot in a world that cries out for revolution so badly with each creak and groan and honk and yet those of us who
have the time and space and youth and energy
We are the prodigious, sacreligious children of the 80’s
We are the children of the American cheese product
Of the NFL
The woodchuck mini-van
So now,
We experiment with giving away our possessions. We experiment with the isms and trappings of the ability to choose to experiment with the isms and trappings. We wear our causes on our sleeves.
Our hearts hurt, but our heads hurt more.
We beat them against the stop lights as the green urges us forward, ever forward.
We grieve. But we grieve silently, quietly, shamefully because we fear that if someone were to hear us, the sniffling from the back stall of that bus station bathroom, that they might call us out as the polluted revolutionaries that we are.
We are tainted commanders. We constantly look over our shoulders in the perpetual fear that they will know,
That they will know that we were breastfed by the enemy herself.
That they will look in our closets and see our shoes. Worse yet, that they might glance into our cars (our cars!) and find the detritus from a covert McDonald’s expedition. Are we the hypocrites, whose Newman’s Own coffee cup with sleeve and plastic top lie next to the dumpstered Odwalla bars and homemade hummus container?
….
(to be continued…)
We who are the prodigious children of the 80’s
Progeny of the Baby Boomers
Well-bred
Well read
Well educated on the thoughts of rich white men
We have been provided with the teats of an economic boom
Suckling lulls us to sleep
Snoring even as we eat
We have a hard time spurning the milk we were raised on.
And we yearn for revolution
We yearn for the day that life is so intolerable that we pack our bags and head for the train station
Buy a ticket to who-the-hell-knows
Fast.
Sleep on bus station floors next to the homeless philosopher and pastor bum
From whom we will learn life’s secrets,
to whom we will confess the matter of our privilege
And curled up with the pile of dirt from the push broom’s ceaseless sweeping
We are worried that this hurt is perhaps what we deserve
But we’ll never say it because we are the Ivy educated golden but decimated
children of the 80’s.
Finding ourselves. Finding our spot in a world that cries out for revolution so badly with each creak and groan and honk and yet those of us who
have the time and space and youth and energy
We are the prodigious, sacreligious children of the 80’s
We are the children of the American cheese product
Of the NFL
The woodchuck mini-van
So now,
We experiment with giving away our possessions. We experiment with the isms and trappings of the ability to choose to experiment with the isms and trappings. We wear our causes on our sleeves.
Our hearts hurt, but our heads hurt more.
We beat them against the stop lights as the green urges us forward, ever forward.
We grieve. But we grieve silently, quietly, shamefully because we fear that if someone were to hear us, the sniffling from the back stall of that bus station bathroom, that they might call us out as the polluted revolutionaries that we are.
We are tainted commanders. We constantly look over our shoulders in the perpetual fear that they will know,
That they will know that we were breastfed by the enemy herself.
That they will look in our closets and see our shoes. Worse yet, that they might glance into our cars (our cars!) and find the detritus from a covert McDonald’s expedition. Are we the hypocrites, whose Newman’s Own coffee cup with sleeve and plastic top lie next to the dumpstered Odwalla bars and homemade hummus container?
….
(to be continued…)
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
At it again?
Hey all,
Sometimes, when I'm tired, I think it would all be a hell of a lot easier if I could just put my backpack to bed and stay awhile.
I think of the Wednesday night dinner that's happening in Portland as I write - the community that has formed through a simple presence in each other's lives, weekly, and with food.
I think of nights falling asleep on the day bed with my best friends playing the guitar, or talking, or falling asleep as well - all around me.
I think of the little farm in the winter, and the new ski trail, and the woodstove. I think of the feeling that house has when its just full enough with brothers and parents and grandparents.
I think of what I've come to know as "home" - something I sought for so long, something I ascribed to people, to places. I think of what it means to know that you are "from" somewhere - that once you know, you only desire to know it more.
But then I realize that I have only come to know home through the process of going away - because each time I do it challenges me to peel off a new layer, to go deeper with my connections, with my place - to commit more totally to the people that make up that community. And so I'm back at it - and as I call each new family and talk to each new girl, and read their applications about what they're looking for and why they're traveling, I remember wanting nothing more than to seek my place in a world I didn't understand, find my work in a world that seemed to have so much work to be done. So the same giddy excited feeling of knowing that I get to embark on a 15 week adventure with teenage girls who are just trying to sort out where they fit, whose minds are about to be blown, who are seeking a challenge and an excitement and an interconnection that they don't even have proof exists - but somehow still know to seek it. And I remember that its not for me anymore - I'm not the one seeking. I've found what I'm looking for. I'm facilitating the process of others seeking. And perhaps despite the fact that I've found what I'm looking for, I have no doubt that the next few months are going to flip that over and spin it on its head - to remind me that holding to tightly to the way something looked before might not let it be what it actually is.
And so I'm back in Bozeman, packing and prepping and psyching up to travel yet again. And it could be for a week, it could be for two months, it could be for a year - it doesn't matter. The challenge is to be present - neither by thinking that it will be so long until I return home, or by letting myself slide into the comfort of telling myself "it will go by so fast..."
So here I am. Staying with Gen and Taylor and Zane and Roam - witnessing the way they parent their two incredible boys with an amazing amount of patience and humor. Naked and potty-training Roam pooped on his chair at the dinner table tonight. I think years of traveling lets you see the humor in that. Gen jokes that if you can handle the logistics of the Traveling School, that only then can you handle the logistics of parenting.
Prepping, calling parents, talking to girls, imagining teacher dynamics and orientation, trying to think of the little details and then trying not to let the little details take over the big picture.
So I'm here. The rest of the teachers start on Monday and we dive into orientation. We fly to Miami on Jan 31, meet our girls on the 1st, and fly out on the 2nd. Our itinerary looks roughly as follows:
Ecuador:
Week 1-2: Hacienda Guachala, Cayambe (north of Quito) - Student Orientation, beginning classes
Week 3: Otavalo Spanish Institute - Spanish Intensive
Week 4: Agualongo - Rural homestays in an indigenous village, with whom TTS has a long relationship
Week 5-6: Tena and the Amazon
Week 7-8: Guayaquil and the Galapagos
Week 9: Montanitas, Surfing
Peru:
Week 10: Huaraz, Santa Cruz trek (awesome backpacking section)
Week 11-12: Cusco, Inca Trail, Machu Picchu
Week 13: Puno, Lake Titicaca
Bolivia:
Week 14: Copacabana
Week 15: La Paz, Mountaineering!
So that's where we're at! Follow along, it promises to be a hell of an adventure.
I have been so unbelievably blessed by the presence and support of the people that I have in my life. Thank you each of you - whether I've known you for 20 years or 3 months, you know who you are - for holding the space for me to go and return.
And I almost wrote to ask you to pardon my sappiness, but no! You're going to get what I'm thinking about here - should be raw.
Much love,
Heather
Sometimes, when I'm tired, I think it would all be a hell of a lot easier if I could just put my backpack to bed and stay awhile.
I think of the Wednesday night dinner that's happening in Portland as I write - the community that has formed through a simple presence in each other's lives, weekly, and with food.
I think of nights falling asleep on the day bed with my best friends playing the guitar, or talking, or falling asleep as well - all around me.
I think of the little farm in the winter, and the new ski trail, and the woodstove. I think of the feeling that house has when its just full enough with brothers and parents and grandparents.
I think of what I've come to know as "home" - something I sought for so long, something I ascribed to people, to places. I think of what it means to know that you are "from" somewhere - that once you know, you only desire to know it more.
But then I realize that I have only come to know home through the process of going away - because each time I do it challenges me to peel off a new layer, to go deeper with my connections, with my place - to commit more totally to the people that make up that community. And so I'm back at it - and as I call each new family and talk to each new girl, and read their applications about what they're looking for and why they're traveling, I remember wanting nothing more than to seek my place in a world I didn't understand, find my work in a world that seemed to have so much work to be done. So the same giddy excited feeling of knowing that I get to embark on a 15 week adventure with teenage girls who are just trying to sort out where they fit, whose minds are about to be blown, who are seeking a challenge and an excitement and an interconnection that they don't even have proof exists - but somehow still know to seek it. And I remember that its not for me anymore - I'm not the one seeking. I've found what I'm looking for. I'm facilitating the process of others seeking. And perhaps despite the fact that I've found what I'm looking for, I have no doubt that the next few months are going to flip that over and spin it on its head - to remind me that holding to tightly to the way something looked before might not let it be what it actually is.
And so I'm back in Bozeman, packing and prepping and psyching up to travel yet again. And it could be for a week, it could be for two months, it could be for a year - it doesn't matter. The challenge is to be present - neither by thinking that it will be so long until I return home, or by letting myself slide into the comfort of telling myself "it will go by so fast..."
So here I am. Staying with Gen and Taylor and Zane and Roam - witnessing the way they parent their two incredible boys with an amazing amount of patience and humor. Naked and potty-training Roam pooped on his chair at the dinner table tonight. I think years of traveling lets you see the humor in that. Gen jokes that if you can handle the logistics of the Traveling School, that only then can you handle the logistics of parenting.
Prepping, calling parents, talking to girls, imagining teacher dynamics and orientation, trying to think of the little details and then trying not to let the little details take over the big picture.
So I'm here. The rest of the teachers start on Monday and we dive into orientation. We fly to Miami on Jan 31, meet our girls on the 1st, and fly out on the 2nd. Our itinerary looks roughly as follows:
Ecuador:
Week 1-2: Hacienda Guachala, Cayambe (north of Quito) - Student Orientation, beginning classes
Week 3: Otavalo Spanish Institute - Spanish Intensive
Week 4: Agualongo - Rural homestays in an indigenous village, with whom TTS has a long relationship
Week 5-6: Tena and the Amazon
Week 7-8: Guayaquil and the Galapagos
Week 9: Montanitas, Surfing
Peru:
Week 10: Huaraz, Santa Cruz trek (awesome backpacking section)
Week 11-12: Cusco, Inca Trail, Machu Picchu
Week 13: Puno, Lake Titicaca
Bolivia:
Week 14: Copacabana
Week 15: La Paz, Mountaineering!
So that's where we're at! Follow along, it promises to be a hell of an adventure.
I have been so unbelievably blessed by the presence and support of the people that I have in my life. Thank you each of you - whether I've known you for 20 years or 3 months, you know who you are - for holding the space for me to go and return.
And I almost wrote to ask you to pardon my sappiness, but no! You're going to get what I'm thinking about here - should be raw.
Much love,
Heather
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