Waves

I am not invincible.

Pema Chodron's words resonate within me...

"To live is to be willing to die over and over again." 

Beautiful ocean, hello.

Pull me into your beauty.

Remind me of my youth

and capture me.

Sweep me into your vastness.

Terrify me, 

I want you to.

And fill me with awe.

Humble me.

I respect you for the mere fact

that you are, that

I do not understand you,

that I will never be able 

to grasp

your existence, 

or

your power.

Thud-ump, thud-ump, thud-ump.

What ARE you, ocean?

You happen to me over

and over.

Now, I am inland,

and you happen.

Incomprehensible God, hello.

I cannot pull my desires 

away from you.

You remind me of my youth

and capture me.

What ARE you, God?

Are you even

there?

My heart and my mind 

persist, 

but I know not why.

Terrify me, God.

Turn on me

so that I might feel

your absence

and

crave you more.

I think it is You, 

happening,

to me.

The ocean does,

but do You too?

T

Drowned in Coffee

Here's a little third cup of coffee thinking...


Why do we seek improvement?

I'm holding my guitar in hand, well under my arm,
and for the past half hour I have begun to learn Yellow Ledbetter by Pearl Jam.
It has some very slick guitar licks that I feel, so I figured why not?

But as I have been doing so, I stopped and thought...
why?
What motivates me?

What motivates me to learn this song?
Is it because it makes me happy?
Because I feel it deep when I hear the crisp hits of the guitar?
Or is it because I want to be "good."

5 years ago I wanted be "good,"to be able to be playing some of the things I do now.
And now I want to be "good".... maybe able to improv or play lead licks off the cuff without thinking.
Let's take guitar out of this...
What is it that we, that you, do over and over... that you seek to improve yourself in... to be "good."

But why?
Sometimes I think, one day I'm going to be an old women, unable to pick up a guitar and play the things I spend hours playing or learning.
Is it all worth it?

I mean what is truly worth it?

So why seek improvement at all?
Are we not satisfied with our own place of being?

Or perhaps we just desire to experience what the heart does when we come to find more... when we come to feel things deeper. When the notes of a guitar and each choice the guitarist makes while playing becomes this.... this art that somehow, our very being relates to.

hmmm...
it's all so interesting.
What is that, that makes us, to the core, feel part of something bigger?

For now I have this song that reminds me of a wonderful evening with a good friend, playing pool in an empty bar while we were listening to this song all the way up.

-M

The Ants Creep

I just thought, "I don't want to read this human development report anymore, I'll blog".

So here I am, blogging and thinking about how I am antsy to be home and also how I have tons of things I still want to do in Lisboa...

...to be home...

...to see it all...

The heart yearns and the mind turns it into a problem.

Turning calls from deep within me into hurdles I should really overcome.

I'd like to learn how to be content with my yearning-- to really look at it, even embrace it.

I'd like to learn to be content with my heart while enjoying the world the rest of my body is experiencing.

Okay, back to the report...

T

The Açorean Aventura

WARNING: If you are about to watch this video and do not already love me very much 

(unconditional love may be needed) then I would warn you that you may find this video 

1) too detailed 2) excessively long 3) boring

If you do love me, I believe it still may be a chosen few who are able to stick it out 

through to the end of this video.  I know this.  I understand. 

I will not try and trick you.  It is almost 17 minutes long...of reflection and story telling...

and if you know me at all, you know how those two things go for me.  

***

Scroll down and click play if you would like to hear about my adventure 

in São Miguel, Açores this past weekend.  

The Açores are nine Portuguese islands way out in the Atlantic Ocean.  

For four days and five nights I stayed on the largest island, São Miguel.

Right here:

Initially, I was traveling to the island to experience the Festa de Santo Cristo for research I am doing with my Anthropology professor on socio-religious feasts.  Some days got mixed up and I ended up finding out the day before I left that Santo Cristo was taking place at the very moment and had been since the past weekend.  "Oh crap."  I would then arrive on the last day of the festival, but then have three full days of "fly by the seat of my pants-ness".  Which is something I am accustomed to; however, this time I was very much aware of the fact that I was traveling out into the middle of the ocean with no plan and no clear vision of why I was going anymore...

So I just took a deep breath and got on the plane.

"Boa sorte" with this video.

Tan

Chest Pain

My chest is made of knots and braids, trapping dust and voices that block my airways.
I knead my fingers in my palms then press my finger pads below my collar bone to no avail.
My mind manifests its worries in my body through the sensation of suffocation as
I strain to meet deadlines.

On days like this I don't talk much, but can write a poem to express my angst for a world and school
that causes pain from cognitive signals sent from my brain through my veins
creating tightness in my chest.


-dramatic anonymous during finals

tech-naaaah-logy

I'm about to write a rant about technology...

as I am typing on my Loras laptop that is somewhat disposable... because

we use them for two years, complain about them (for valid reasons), and then turn them in.

My words appear on this artificial document screen thingy that 

someone super smart, well a lot of smart people, figured out

how to make wires and numbers and codes turn into this blog spot

post that I am typing, and that you are reading.

I have learned from society, education, Mavis Bacon (Beacon? idk..But remember...?),

and my numerous college papers how to swiftly move my fingers across the small plastic squares,

without looking, to form words and sentences in just a few blinks of the eye. 

And the crazy thing is... that is what is ordinary.

This is what we know, 

and this is what we do.

This is what we are 

supposed to know.

Today, I spent my evening working on some work, homework, 

and miscellaneous things that needed to get done.

Then I realized that hours had passed and afterwards I was consistently checking my 

email, text messages, and word documents to see what else I had to do, or if someone

got back to me on some of the things I was working on.

I stopped when I noticed that I probably checked my email five times in 10 or 15 minutes... and

I'm not even waiting for anything urgent. 

it's just this mentality of always being on top of things, always connected to what

"has" to get done and the tasks before me.. or up ahead.

It's frustrating.

Why is that in order to "take in" a moment we enjoy, we take Snapchats to publish on our stories? 

I mean I do this sometimes... but why??

Why is it that the beauty of life is filtered through my lens of my stinking

Apple phone, which I am so grateful for, but so attached to.

I went a week without a phone. This past week, following the tragic fall of my phone into a deep deep deep (yes, deep) body of water.

It was different. Hard. I got lost driving a few times and had to ask random people for directions.

and it was wonderful.

But I love having a phone.

It's great to communicate with the people that I love.

But... why must it distract me from them too.

ahhhhh.

I'm not too sure what I'm saying, just ranting.

I want to live right here.

Where I am right now.

Moving my fingers across the little plastic squares with shaped lines on them that produce this very thought... 

And while it urks me... it also fills me. 

Because I can sit on my bed,

doing just this,

and you can sit where you are... 

doing just whatever it is that 

you are doing.

And you can read this, because I 

jumbled some words into thoughts

into a blog.... 

that you are reading.

and perhaps thinking.

and perhaps we are all just living.

I think I'm giving myself a headache. 

_michelle

"Dig our toes into the open road.

We go into this great bright morning,

leave the rest of this world behind.

Falling into this great bright morning,

You and I."

figuras avulsa

At the beginning of this adventure, when my friend Allison was visiting from her own study abroad experience in Spain, her and I moseyed into the shop of a man who would become a mentor and friend to me.  Rui owns "Amarelo 28", a tourist shop in Alfama with beautiful local/regional artists' work.  His mission is to showcase the work of Portuguese artists and to bring people together so they can form connections and bonds themselves.

I learned this was his mission only after I had asked him for a favor, that day I met him with Allison, of helping me to find someone with whom I could have some sort of ceramics or tile painting lesson with.  Little did I know this was right up Rui's alley.  A couple of weeks later Rui got back to me with the contact information of a woman he knew who agreed to give me a lesson.  Little did he know that I had already spoke with this same woman in her little shop in Alfama a couple weeks prior and had been politely turned down because her space was so small.

...perks of making a friend who has a tile painter as a "dear friend" who will happily help another friend out.

So the tile painting lesson was in the works.

Later that week Rui and I grabbed lunch, he showed me around Alfama, and then introduced me to Elisabete.  She didn't remember me from the polite, "that's sweet, but no" conversation her and I had, which was a-okay with me.  Afterwards I met back up with Rui, we walked around Lisboa some more, there was a fashion show involved and also another one of his friends selling perfume products there.  That'd be a tangent story though, so I'll just keep on with the tile painting...

This past Thursday I finally had my lesson with Elisabete.  I messaged her in the morning the day of to clarify if we were still on.  It was raining pretty hard and she had mentioned that in April her sister, who she works with, paints outside when it is nice.  This April day was not so nice, but she said we were still a go.  So I went.

I met her in her tiny tiiiiny, sized shop (that is about the size of my bathroom back home) and she took me back outside and to the shop's neighboring apartment.  I believe Elisabete rents this apartment out, she explained the woman "living" there hasn't been back for a year now.  She lives part of the year in London and the other part...well still in London at this rate.  She is in her eighties and the travel is not as easy for her.  So, Elisabete transformed a little corner of the, bordering hoarder-like, apartment into a little studio for our lesson on this calm stirring rainy day.

The lesson began.

I never had a lesson with painting ceramics before, my only experience is those therapeutic crafty events Loras puts on and the occasional childhood birthday party that was thrown at a pottery place.  It's harder than you think...or than I thought.  I like acrylic because you layer and overlap and mix and add texture and get messy and let it become what it will be as your hand is moving and moving slowly but surely and intentionally yet sporadically...

Yea, water color, which is what we use for said tile painting, is not like that.

We plan it out, use rapid brush strokes, and never ever go over it again...ever.  Elisabete reminded me of this more than once, from my own fault.  Hey, this is why I wanted a lesson, so I could learn.

I also learned to embrace those mistakes and not let my instant reaction to "touch it up" get me sweetly scolded in Elisabete's enduring way.  Just roll with it.  The mistake becomes the character of the piece when you let it happen and keep on moving, but when you try and go back and fix it, it becomes the center of the piece and un-ignorable.  This isn't my point, but there is definitely a lesson bigger than my painting skills in there.

We'll see how she turns out, I'm not expecting a masterpiece, but only a reminder.  A reminder of Elisabete, Rui, adventure, embracing mistakes, and the beautiful tiles plastered all over the city that will be my home for two more months.  My mom's little idea she mentioned before I left evolved into a staple memory of my time here.  Now I too have hand painted my own tile, even if it's just to be in solidarity with Elisabete or to more deeply appreciate the tradition (and skill!!) evolving from Portugal's Islamic influences or to now be able to say "hey, that style is called figuras avulsa!" when I see a tile similar to mine or all of the above.

Ciao.

the astral weeks i'll share

Well hello again, sorry for the delay.  You'd be right to assume my absence from the "blog spot" equals me doing well.  I am QUITE well.

Here's a month full of updates in a few pics and a few words...once you're done you probably won't feel like "few" was the right word.  Ha, lo siento (that's not Portuguese by the way).

...and because I enjoy doing this I will first include this song I've been stuck on for a while to pump another one of your senses with the ambiance of Tanner's Lisboa Adventure as you scroll and read...ooooooooo yesss...

...& no, the song's not Portuguese...but pshh what does that even mean anyways?

Loved Van Morrison before I knew that was his name.  Anyways, March included...

...a beach, my swim suit, but only my legs in the water, a game of cards, some friends, a friend of a friend, and a friend of a friend's couple of roommates, and these kiddos playing soccer on the beach.

...a Bones Chapel in Evora, Portgual and this cool German guy we met while there that we'll hopefully see again soon.

        

...flashin' lights lights lights lights...& Spanish music that Portuguese go crazy over, even though they will roll their eyes at the end of the song and say something about how all the Spanish do is clap

...a research internship with my anthropology professor!!!  He's a cool dude.

...a birthday + gourmet cupcakes at a place called "Tease" for a reason, winewinewine, & a not so legal, but DELICIOUS Chinese restaurant. 

...man truckin' across a square with two huge bags full of bread, a sticky situation, and Easter treats my landlord graciously offered all of the residents (including Porto wine! <3).

...Indian food with my Indian friend who says it tasted just like home, drawings of our homes to leave our mark in a cutsie tourist cafe (there's an arrow in there to help), and good ole foot-butt graffiti.

...two Polish nights hosted by a couple of delightful Poles.

...much needed and long awaited pizza & beer, a family reunion that very quickly became a family reunion for me too, and the journey up a...very VERY large incline/hill/"mountain"to the highest point where a king one placed a cross you can see from Palacio da Pena.

...Douro Valley (where the vineyards are!), some great aesthetics, but poor architecture, a very kind man who sold us some traditional sweet treats from the next town over, and a beautiful outdoor Mass in Fatima.    

Fatima deserves an extra sentence for itself-- some people don't understand how we could have spent two nights in Fatima when so many just go for a morning, but it became such a beautiful retreat for Leigha's family and me.  Very refreshing/renewing, especially at halfway through this time abroad.

...AND March also included my first Irish Car Bomb that Leigha's (American) dad had to teach the (Portuguese) bartender how to pour.



That's what I got.  God is good and this life is good.

Ciao.

Tan

Thoughts on the Road.

Saturday.

Got back from the seven day, six state, five state/national park, four million feet of snow, three major cities, two road trip buds, and one crazy adventure.... yesterday.

It was different than other road trips I've been on.
So here are my journal thoughts.

"On the road to Omaha. I can't believe that it is already Thursday... (insert ramble jargen)
.. This concept of a road trip is soo... interesting. It is funny, to go in a car, drive random places, stay with people I've never met, eat a mixture of SUPER good food or random cooler/on the road food.
Yet this concept of "road trip" we elevate so much.
We go somewhere, like a vacation, but road trips are different. They are more spontaneous and simple. They are long, tiring, and beautiful all at once.
But we go...
in hopes to find something...
peace, beauty, nature, answers to questions within us, people, etc.

It's almost a paradox...
I mean maybe you don't think so, but bare with me.

We "get away" while we "venture toward."

We leave behind the place we were.
Perhaps that's the busy movements of the day or college, homework, work work, weather, people, or conflict...
We leave that. Physically.
In some ways we don't just drive from it physically, but also emotionally.
At 80 miles per hour. (The speed limit in the west is pretty high... no worries po-lice.)

At the same time (the other side of the "paradox" or whatever you want to call it)
We drive toward something that will give our hearts some light,ease. or crazy venture.
We find ourselves in new towns, at old bars, and unfamiliar faces.
We climb mountains, walk across frozen lakes, play music in a plaza, drive obscene hours...

But we come to the same self.
The one rushing to class for taking too long to get out of bed (guilty),
or the one that walks the same few routes to class, home, class, people, meetings, etc.
Everyday.

Sorry getting long. Almost done.

But that same me, that same self. instead of sitting in Dubuque, IA, or Tinley Park, IL, is seeing the same world from a mountain top view.
And man, is it beautiful.

The same me is cutting my knees climbing to the top of a rocky (ha..) mountain.
The same me is trudging through thigh-deep snow in CO laughing at the choice of Spring Bring weather.

It sounds SO exciting. So insane. So dream-like.
And it was. and still is.
But it is also so ordinary.

So comforting to be able to stare at mountain peaks and the Black Hills, and see faces carved into a mountain... while being the same me.

Yeah, maybe I'm changing with the changes of life.
The struggles, the miles on the road, the pages of school reading, or the hundreds of papers of college.

But it's still the same me.
Just from a mountain top's view.
Or from a boring Nebraska terrain drive.

It's still me."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pictures:

Dubuque, IA - Minnesota - Rapid City, SD -  Mt Rushmore National Memorial - Black Hills/Custer Park, SD, - Wyoming - Loveland, CO - Estes Park, CO - Rocky Mountain National Park, CO - Boulder, CO - Broomfield, CO - Denver, CO - Omaha, NE - Dubuque, IA - Rockford, IL :) - TP, IL aka HOMELAND

we were a little excited

"Great faces, Great places"

Black Hills, 

Custer Park, SD

Rocky Mountains 10,000 ft. Tried to go higher. Nick almost died.

Yep, the Rocky Mountains are cool.

Gem Lake , RMNP. Elevation 10,000 ft

"Save the flowers." 

Broomfield, CO.

mk

"Us" & "Them"

I thoroughly enjoy this moment.  

Sometimes I don't like talking about memories in the past tense.  If I am still thinking of a memory then that moment hasn't ceased to impact me and still somehow, maybe, that moment lives on in some alternative way just because I am thinking of it.  Therefore, I enjoy this moment.

After sneaking this picture I planted myself on a bench next to them and ate my usual lunch which typically consists of a sandwich and a carrot or an apple.  I forget which exactly it was for this day.  I do remember the sun was out and it called out to me to let it in, so I unzipped my jacket and opened it wide so my torso could soak up it's heat before the rain began again.

There are many things that separated me from these men that day.  

Physical distance, their bench and mine.  Company, they had some and I had the birds.  

Age, language, gender, etc., but the last, I'll admit inferred, separation between me and these men 

is where we are "from".  

Our nationality separates us.  

They are Portuguese.  I am American.

We take pride in the land left inside the borders, sometimes natural and sometimes drawn by man, that create difference between peoples--that create "us" and "them".  

Why do we do this?

-T

& thank you to Michelle for convincing me to post this unformed thought.

pipe dreams

3/3/16 pre-P&J pipe smoke

Yesterday I was contemplating the idea of pipe dreams... after a nice pipe smoke.
I began to wonder what makes us desire to learn about places we will never walk

and people we will never meet?

What drives us to Pinterest pictures of crafts and DIY's that we will never do... or 

talk about things we actually don't know anything about?

Before I get ahead of myself and keep coming up with more and more questions...

I'm going to throw out a few potential answers...

We are attracted and fascinated with newness and difference.

ever have a rush when standing in a new place, listening to someone else's "crazy"

life stories, making your own stories, or listening to music SO loud it almost rushes 

through you. 

But we aren't just attracted to these things for the instant gratfication...

No, I think we desire something within us to MOVE.

Perhaps we desire to find a new little nugget within ourselves,

or maybe we just want to FEEL something? Could we crave unity to something

or someone? Something to hold onto?

hmm... 

maybe it all comes down to one thing..

Hope.

- for something deeper to satisfy that insecurity that we so severely seek to mask

- for happiness... I mean who doesn't want to be happy.

- for relief: from the daily stresses, from homework, from the internal junk, from 

injustice in the world, from (insert whatever you want).

Ahhh hope....

A hope that brings us right back to those pipe dreams.

Maybe pipe dreams are unrealistic. Yeah I'll probably never meet the refugee 

families in Algreia, Africa that I learned about last night... but I bet they never 

thought they would be mentioned... and would have motivated thought... in this 

American college kid's blog.

I'll probably never sit on a stage in front of thousands of people, play my 

guitar, and sing the thoughts of my heart.... but I could do that for a small 

group of freshman girls last Sunday.

Pipe dreams may be absurd.

But so are most things in life...

just think about it for a second.

I mean really.

Hope is absurd.

But life's better lived in the absurdity.

Yep. 

Questions? Comments? Concerns?

-M Kavy

here's to the bar guy

This post is for the guy I met at the bar last night.
HA... no not like that.
Here's to you bar guy.


Last night, two of my best life buds and I went to the classiest bar in town... aka the one where you can get $1 beers on Thursday.
We were standing in the upstairs,
and I stated it smelled like a "dead sock," due to the amount of sweaty, beer drinking individuals hanging around. Including myself.
I was playing pool, and as I was waiting my turn I was standing near this guy sitting at a table with some friends. Actually, some of you who were there too probably took notice of him.

I started making conversation with said guy, because he had pretty crazy dreadlocks.
I asked him about his dreads, how long he's had them, hear about his life and how people judge him for it, and so on.
Then he started talking about how he makes music...
Which, hey, I write music. So that's cool.
He was talking about how passionate he is to play music, travel, and meet people around the world.
Stop thinking... this dude is a total hippie.
Because maybe he was in his mustard yellow vibing shirt, baggy orange pants, and "drug rug."
Ha.
Whatever.

So I decided to ask him what motivates him to play or write music.
I don't have an exact quote, but he explained to me how he loves creating something that can be an expression of emotions and feelings. He talked about how much love people can experience within listening to or writing music and how much it builds relationships and community.
It was a moment where I wish I could take a picture of him and remember the words he was saying so I could share it with... everyone. Not because he's trendy or musical, but because that is the REALEST bar conversation I've ever had with a stranger, especially a male stranger.
He didn't ask me for my phone number or Facebook or anything,
He just shared with me who he was...
and offered to dreadlock my hair. (Don't worry mom).

So this morning I've been thinking about how cool of a encounter that was, and took some time to find him on Sound Cloud, since he did tell me his artist/band name. Really cool stuff.

So here's to you bar guy.
Thanks for looking different.
Thanks for having dreadlocks,
so I would come up and chat with you while
I was hopelessly shooting pool.
Thanks for giving me your SoundCloud
so I can hear your expression.
I'm prettty positive you'll never know
that the girl that you talked to for
fifteen minutes wrote a blog
thanking you for, well, being you.

Here's to you, bar guy with dreadlocks.
You inspire me to live.



email me if you're interested in listening to his music.

_shelly kav

it ain't nothing like the old school

Just a little Lisboa "character" to inspire your day.

Side note:  More "character" to add to the list would be the fact that they are playing 

"I'll Make Love to You" by Boyz II Men in the café I'm in right now.

Yesssss, I am in ANOTHER café.

And here it is because I know you want to.

Tan

Another Coffee Shop Post...per ushe...

I didn't seek to run away this time, I think I pretty much have that covered since I’m like 4,000 or something miles from home.  I just sought to veer off just a bit and for just a while.  Below is directly from the journal-ing that occurred while I was there last night:

I'm at this place, Pois Café.  Its heavy curtain with the slit down the middle after the entry way sparked my curious mind, so I stepped through.  Today I was feeling kind of down, but just in a human condition kind of way.  This day just happened to be lower than the past few days have been.  It’s rainy, and therefore gloomy, and i also think I may be getting sick or just coming to terms with the fact that I’ve been sick.  **I'll skip the part of this entry when I talk about the state of my tonsils.**  So, today I just was feeling the sigh a bit more than usual.  Now though, now as in like this very moment— yea, it's so wonderful.  I'm going to stop thinking about where I should be or worrying about what could be and be here with all of me, including my mind.  

So often that is not how our moments works.  we are here in the most obvious way and our mind thought about that very place we are in enough to get us there, but that can be the extent of it.  We get our bodies to places, but what about our minds too?  At the beginning of this America's Greatest City book on Chicago I checked out in the sociology section at my school's library **I won't explain why, ha.**  it questions our true sense of community in a global and techno-savvy age.  No longer (maybe, at least I think this book is saying...) is our community with the ones our bodies are "with" or near, but our community is with the ones our minds, and often only our minds, are "with".  This puts into serious question what we consider community to be I think, it’s not so straight forward when we add intentions into the equation.  We text, call, email, tweet, post, whatever to everyone away from us.  So then they are our community more so that the ones physically with us?  Oofta. 

I've been particularly struggling with metro habits as the metro in itself is foreign to me.  Unfortunately, the past week or so I've noticed I’ve begun to take on a particular demeanor in my own metro travel routine.  It goes like this:

Metro, enter, sit, wait, go, hand out, phone on, head down, stop, head up, hand in pocket, up, move, off repeat.  Repeat, repeat, repeat.  BLEH.  

Okay, I don’t go “bleh” at the end of the cycle, thank God, but I do go “bleh” when I think about the cycle.  I mean, come on.  I've been craving structure in my days, but not habituality!  I made that word up, but it works, eh?  I'm not sure when the moment was when I mentally shrugged my hypocrite shoulders and decided to conform to this blindness, but I definitely made this decision and it is life sucking.  Now, people do have to get places and people are tired and people think about what they have to buy at the grocery story while on the metro.  BUT what if there was just one person on the metro who did have a question, need a bit of light conversation or even just a reassuring smile and everything about my demeanor said, "Yep sorry buddy, it's not me.  Look past me.  I'm alone."  This is how I feel so many choose to project themselves on the metro ride and, recently, how I have chosen to project myself on the metro.  

Our minds remove us from where we are so snidely.  They want our bodies to put on the show that we actually are completely where our bodies happen to be.  In order to truly be where we are both our bodies and our minds have to be there.  What is community if we are constantly choosing the one that is away?  There is some researched definition of community out there, but here is just my two cents…community is chosen, intentional, and who we are "whole" to not just with our physical presence, but our mental presence as well.  EVEN on the fast paced metro where I see hundreds of faces I’ll never see again.  I don’t think the definition of community has a time limit, at least if I were constructing my own, it wouldn't.  Presence takes patience I think, so I hope I can manage that with people I encounter, even indirectly, and then maybe we could join in silent community for but 2 minutes.

Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be able to share and be understood or share in a way that feels satisfying enough to not care whether or not the other person actually understands because I do understand just enough to feel even the slightest amount competent and valid.  

I have a black smudge on my right pinkie from writing like a leftie with the wrong hand.  I finished my beer, this thought, and my ability to suppress the fact that I've had to pee my entire time being here.  Okay, catch me Lord.  I'm asking a lot of You with my stepping without planning and sometimes without considering that maybe reality really should be a factor sometimes.  Just be You, how about, and I'll be me and then I think that pretty much means all will be well...?  Okay, that is all.  

Tan

  

I'll end this post with this song, because it's been floating in my head for a few days and then this man in the metro station was playing it on his guitar the other day and it made me smile.

2.15.16

3:28 PM
I'm sitting on the floor in my room, googling towns near Dubuque to run away to for a few hours... You know sometimes you just feel kind of stuck and need to get in your car and drive or find a new place... it's one of those days. It's a Monday. I'm grateful for a car outside and $1.50 gas.
3:32 PM
I realize Potosi is only 25 minutes away.
3:35 PM
They don't have any open coffee shops.
3:40 PM
Still sitting in my room.
Listening to Bon Iver.
Ya know, he went for a winter and lived in a cabin in Wisconsin by himself....
and he wrote a wrote album while he was there. (Bon Iver... french for good winter... I think). But still.
I blame Bon Iver and Henry David Thoreau for me wanting to go live in a cabin and sort things out for awhile
3:42 PM
Platteville it is, not super different or random, but why the heck not?
4:11 PM

Roped in two of the roommates.
5:18 PM
after driving around aimlessly in Platteville looking for a gas station, we ended up going to a 1930s gas station...yeeeaaah.... and now we are sitting in a coffee shop in Platteville. I'm listening to the same music, typing the same homework (well not right now), thinking a lot of the same thoughts, but there is something soothing about being somewhere new. Somewhere that no one knows me, besides my two friends here with me. It's a sigh of relief from my structured Outlook Calendar.
 5:26 PM
So I wanted to run away alone at first. I wanted to drive somewhere, with no plan, and sit in a place, just with myself... in hopes that maybe something would change or make more sense.  Ha, sounds crazy, but it's the truth.
How about you?
Ever want to just run away? Ever try it? Did it help?
Sometimes I think that driving miles on a road will take me to a new place, not just externally, but internally too. And sometimes it does, but at the same time, there are moments where I drive minutes, hours, miles, whatever... and I come to find the same me. The same person that was sitting in my room two hours ago frantically googling places to drive my car to.
Today, running away was a good choice,
because I didn't reaally run away from anything...
the adventure was shared, and my heart was a little lighter.
Instead of cycling through the same thoughts during the drive to this coffee shop,
we told stories, laughed, jammed out a little, and just spent time with one another.
Nothing "crazy."
Just simple.
But I needed it.
5:32 PM
I sip my coffee and save this blog post... time to open a new Word Document and write a little paper for class.

Nelly Smith

from my mattress on the floor.

So,

I'm chilling here in my room.

From the mattress on my floor. 

Since my bed is a litttttttle broken for the short time being.

That is until I drive to the store 

and buy some... thing.. to fix it.

But due to the excess snow 

and my lazy soul...

I just chill here. 
on the floor.

(notice the stack of books holding it up. Classy.)

Anywho,

here are a few Michelle thoughts for 

your casual Tuesday evening thinking.

Disclaimer... the following my sound a little "dark,"

perhaps, but it isn't meant to be delivered that way.

It is a handful of my reflective thoughts of the day...

Lately people have been telling me that I'm in a really good place,

when I express a large variety of confusion with life.

It's a little dumb-founding to me.

How am I in a "good place" that is "normal"

when I feel like I don't know anything I used to "know"?

Ever feel like that?

Like you had this handful of something

so precious, that moves you...

and then one day you look at it

and say, "What the BEEEEP??!"

You don't recognize it anymore.

It actually, perhaps, resembles dirt....

& maybe you want to throw it on

the ground and leave it behind.

But for some reason,

something in you won't

let you release your grip 

and turn your hands over.

Each day you come to that 

handful and look at it, 

unable to really name what it is.

It frustrates you.

Some days carrying it seems heavy,

other days you don't even

give it a look, 

because you are slightly
bothered with the continual cycle

of confusion.

hmmm... so how could all this
be a "good place," that someone would
almost congratulate me, to be in?

Ha. I realize some of you reading this
may be thinking I'm crazy. Or intense.
Not denying either...ha.
But in all seriousness,
I think I may not be
the only person that feels like this
every now and then?
Am I right? or am I right?


Oh these posts...
They make me feel like a young
teen narrating a Disney Channel
show from the 2000s...
"This is what dreams are made of?"
Anyone, anyone?


Well until I find further thoughts on my little existential confusion-ness....
I used my handy iPhone to capture my tea brewing in water last night.
If you ever feel kinda "blah" grab some form of herbal tea that
is colorful and watch it brew. It'll settle the brain for a little.
Throw it on full screen and take a watch.

P.S. Bed is now fixed. 

-Miche

here & there

I walked here...like, from my home...

...then I sat outside and split a meal of Paella with my beautiful roommate, 

got a large cone full of white chocolate & coffee gelato, and then took the metro to the bus 

which would bring us to our humble abode.  

I needed tonight.  One month in and the stress of all the new begins to fade and the comfort you prayed for finally begins to set in.  

"Ah, I know this place..."

What a reassurance to feel this way.

Reality sets in as well, thoughts don't race around in my head as fast as they did when I just arrived here.  I'm able to let some thoughts linger a bit longer now and actually look at them for a while.  Home...oh home.  

I keep saying how blessed I feel to have something, someone, some place that I miss so much.  I do "miss" and recently, like when I heard my mom or my dad's voice over the phone, my eyes filled with tears and my throat did that clench thing--this is new for Portugal.  I've been so ready to get out and explore and discover for my own, but as comfort sets in emotions surface.  I am here and so happy to be, but I would be pretty happy to be there too.  What a gift.  

That's all for today.

-Tan

Simple Sitting

Wanted to do as the old Portuguese men do this morning, so I did.

I thought, "espresso me, random delicious pastry me, and plop me at a solo table outside where I can read (...a little Positive Psych Paper authored by no other than my dearest, Michellerenian), get some fresh air, food in my stomach, caffeine in my system, and some people watchin' in"...

When I got there those tables in front of me were completely full of old Portuguese men.  They were so engrossed in their papers and morning chit chat that I slid right into my position at the last table in the row without receiving any slight head tilts or eyes above the paper glances, that I noticed.  I do think the manager was surprised I stuck around for so long though, but then him and I were able to share in "obrigados" without any interruptions when I finally decided it was time for me to go to class (side note: turns out I DO have class this week, but just two of them).  I was also able to complement him on his fine, fine pastry and find out it's name, (which I was just about to share with you here, but then decided to look it up really quick.  I only found pictures of some soccer player guy...so I think the manager and I had a communication error, so never mind on the name.  Who knows though, maybe it is named after Zanetti.).  

Now I'm listening to Miami by Will Smith, 

**click**, 

NOW I am listening to Break Your Plans by The Fray.  Much better...

And what a very fitting shuffle selection and soundtrack for my 

side street sitting, old man imitating, adventure.

Ciao for now.

Tan