Some days life just seems to fly by. Other days it hurtles
through space at warp speed. Mine never does anything other than the latter...at least that's how it feels. Sometimes there are moments where it seems to stand still for but a second. It’s in those
standstill moments where I realize that it’s been entirely too long since I
last did anything about updating people on my flyaway year. Today I end the unknown.
I started school with a foray. I was ready to plunder all from life that I could. I was with my best friend again, and I was in a land where the hardest language barrier was trying to understand they "Hey y'all"s and the call to get some "fixins" for dinner; all of which I learned how to decipher from an early age. I endeavored to go climbing every weekend, to go camping and hiking and introspecting equally as frequent. But school and life had different ideas. The semester started and I ran here and there, doing this and that until soon
enough it was Christmas break. In that time I acquired useful skills towards my
major; I now feel a lot better about my Sound Design skills, and I have
determined that it is actually a really enjoyable area. I soldiered through
my design class that is the A&P of the Art Degrees. I retained my job at the film studio, got hired on to make a documentary about other people's abroad experiences and I procured a job in the
language department where I tutor German. This makes me happy because it was
one of the fears I had when coming back to America; that I would lose the
German that I worked so hard to communicate with. For one of my classes I had
to take a placement exam at the beginning and end of the semester and I
actually managed to increase my German proficiency despite being in a country
whose native language isn’t German.
As Christmas came, like all Christmases do, I was surrounded
by a barrage of final projects and a test (yes, as an art student, I actually
took a test), an oddly out of place
warm December, and an overwhelming desire to be back in the land that invented
the modern Christmas. Germany had left its mark on my being deeper than the American veneer I was able to use as a mask. So when I left
school and headed home, the first thing that I tried to accomplish, besides
finding a gift for my nephew, was to make my Christmas in Colorado like the one I enjoyed in Germany. Hours later, the pastries were done and I sat back and
indulged upon the wonderful smells that are synonymous with baking and
Christmas.
After the New Year, I was ready for a slightly less involved
semester. I was burnt out by the 7am to 9pm nonstop shift of school and work
that happened every day. These times didn’t take into account homework. I still
had to do that when I got home. It was a huge difference from my schedule in
Germany. Where I would get 10 hours of sleep a night, I would manage that in a
week. Fortunately, my pace did slow and I am able to get more sleep through
creative time management.
This semester seems like it started last week. But really it
is almost half over already. Spring break is two weeks away and as I sit in my room
looking out at the ice storm that has befallen this panic stricken region. My mind wanders easily to that time two weeks from now, where I will be able to relax on the
Caribbean island of Culebra in Puerto Rico. I’m not usually one for the
Caribbean, but a hammock in the shade of two palm trees as the ocean roars in
the not-so-far-off distance really sounds quite indescribably lovely right now.
I don’t know if I have gotten lazy, burnt out, or just tired of school, but my
motivation for all but two of my classes seems to have gone away at the same
rate as time has and an island adventure might just be my cure.
My dad found a 65mm camera in our house over the break and now I
want to take it with me to Moab this summer. I haven’t decided officially or
not, but before my ninth summer of camp starts, I want to take a vacation to
Moab and just go out and take pictures, relax and maybe shoot a short film or
two. There should be plenty of action going on, it’s Moab after all. But sitting out over
Dead Horse Point with a medium format camera on a 1980s era tripod sounds like a
pretty fun way to start a summer. Basically I just need an adventure to run away with me.
Who knew that travelling, an inherently stressful endeavor,
would be such a good escape from the stresses of life? Ok I guess I did, but
still…it’s an interesting thought.
Next week my professor from Germany comes to recruit at my
school. I cannot wait to visit with her. She became family while I was there.
Or rather I became part of hers. From the first day I got there, I felt as
though I had been adopted into her family and since then have considered her as
such. Maybe seeing her here will take me back to that place where I sat with my window open, my feet hanging over the ledge and me looking out over the middle-German landscape of trees and tall grasses. Where adventure was just a bike ride away, and a new and exciting land was just around the corner.
Soon. Soon I will be there where adventure looms like the tornados on the plains of my favorite state, where I can escape to the lure of a place where excitement lives just on the edges of everywhere, to that new and fantastic place I have never been before. Soon I will be there, if only in my head.
I really should just need to think again, that everywhere is an adventure, and every day is a gift. Grinding away at life isn’t as noteworthy as taking a train
through 18 European countries, but it can still be eventful. I never seem to
have a boring time. Every day is an adventure and every location is a
classroom. I learn more than I think and sometimes just sitting still for a
nanosecond while the spaceship called time hurtles through space is the best
way to remember all the blessings life brings.
