connecting and disconnecting

Today is a sublimely gorgeous day. So what else would I be doing but sitting inside updating my blog?

This morning I got up earlyish and went outside to rake leaves. In Missoula, all that leaf rakers have to do is rake the leaves onto the street, from which they will be picked up by the city and taken away to be composted. It's nice not to have to stuff leaves into garbage bags and haul them away yourslf. So this morning Teresa and I did a little raking, but the leaves haven't made it into the street yet. We raked them into a massive pile and did a little leaf jumping . . . and then I just lay there in this pile of gold, looking up at the blue, blue sky, the dark branches of the maples, the few yellow leaves still hanging on the branches. I watched the leaves flutter down, one by one, in the light breaths of breeze. Mmm.

Last night was the big EVST Halloween party. Last year's party was a blast, with some amazingly creative costumes and lots of food and beer and dancing. This year I dressed up as a 6-year-old, which was great. I wore purple footie pajamas (so warm and fuzzy!), and put my hair up in pigtails, and carried around a stuffed cow, and had string and crayons and a baggie of gorp and a stuffed camel in my pockets. Pictures forthcoming. It was a fun party, but around 11 o'clock I was standing there, surrounded by blasting music, people laughing and talking loudly, good food, good beer . . . and I suddenly felt disconnected from it all. I don't know if I've somehow grown beyond these parties, or if I just wasn't in the mood, or if I was just really getting into the role of my costume, but I realized that what I most wanted to do was go home and go to bed and get enough sleep tonight. So I did. Three cheers for responsibility?

Part of me misses the grad student life. I miss the flexibility of that schedule, the freedom, the long vacations, the community. I'm still part of the community--on the edge of it, at least--but in so many other ways I seem to have moved on. I've been thinking a lot lately about what goals I have for my life, what I want to do, who I want to be, what kind of life I want to live. I've decided that someday I would like to own my own land, and build a house on that land. I feel impossibly far away from the realization of that dream, but at least I'm dreaming it, right? Insha'allah.


Okay, so I suppose I should post some pictures. Let's see what I can dredge up . . .


This is from my birthday party, just before I whacked the hell out of my pinata.





























And Bethie came to visit me! Of course I took her (and Wendi and Scott) to the Old Post.





























And back even further, pictures from Lindsay's wedding in August. Here are all of us gorgeous bridesmaids in our shimmery shades of aqua in the Greek Orthodox church where Linds got married.





























And here are Jen, Maygs, Linds, and I, together again! Oh, it brings me back to our high school days when we'd hang out at Linds's house on the weekends and eat pizza and Doritos, drink Mountain Dew, and watch Clueless. Those were the good old days. Thank God we eat more healthily now! (Right, Linds?)































All right, time to get my nose to the grindstone. Either that, or I'll go out and hike and enjoy this perfect day. Not long, now, until the grey cloudiness of Missoula winter sets in!

Dancing the Macarena . . .

Last night Teresa, Christa and I did a dancing double-header, starting out our evening with lasagna, bread, and wine (mmm, wine!), and then going to the bi-monthly contra dance. Such fun! I love contra dancing, especially with gentlemanly 60-70ish-year-old men. One of the men I danced with reminded me of my Pake, and I just thought about how good Pake would have been at contra dancing, and teasing all the young women. It was lots of fun, and such good exercise! Afterward, the three of us headed over to the Elk's Club for the monthly salsa dance. That was fun, too, but I was really tired and didn't last very long. Right before we left, they played the Macarena, and it was soooo funny to see this huge roomful of people dancing the Macarena. I think the last time I've danced that is at a barn dance for youth group when I was in high school . . . say, a decade ago? Hee hee hee.


Life has been so good lately. This past week has had a lot of positives--at work on Monday I got promoted from "The Intern Who Does A Little Bit of Everything" to "Full Time Employee Who Does A Little Bit of Everything"! Yay! This means an up in pay . . . health benefits . . . TRAVEL benefits . . . and a steady job for the first time in my life. And, for the first time in my life, I'm in a place (both geographical and mental), where I'm willing and even eager to have a steady job. I love my co-workers, which is a good thing, since it's a small office (it's actually a house), with only about 15 employees, so if we don't like each other we ALL have a problem. This week I get to move to my new desk, and it is MY desk, which means I can put up pictures and quotes and have it as my personal space. Yay again! My job right now is an amalgamation of Office Manager and Peru/Ecuador Operations Person, but I think that in the next couple of weeks I'm going to add "Flight/Travel Agent" to the list. Needless to say, I will be keeping busy!


What else? I went to yoga on Tuesday, and it was good, as always. My friend Jess and I went together and then had pizza at the Bridge afterward--I think it will be a Tuesday evening tradition, and a good one. On Wednesday Jess and I went rock climbing, and it was so much fun! I have only been climbing once, and that was two and a half years ago, so I'm glad to be able to do it again. I think it may be an activity I could really enjoy! Wednesday night was also the ROLLING STONES concert, so the University was swarming with people, and the smell of pot wafted through the air . . . hee.


On Friday I didn't work, so I ran errands and went to Old Navy and got some fun clothing (too many good sales . . . beware!), and just had a good, relaxed day. In the evening I went with my friend Francie to her three-room schoolhouse and helped her decorate her classroom for Halloween. We had so much fun! She hung up skeletons and spiders and bats, and I stretched cobwebby stuff in all the corners of the classroom, and we listened to 'Nosotros' -- an awesome Latino band -- and danced around the room as we decorated.


So . . . life is good, and I find myself in this strange place of contentment and enthusiasm. The semester did NOT start off well at all, and I admit to being stressed and sad and worried about how my life was going, but these past couple of weeks have been so rich. I know that God is constantly working in our lives, but I'm not sure we're always able to see it. I feel blessed to be able to feel God's hand in my life right now, blessed that I am open to it, blessed that I am so loved as to receive the richness of his grace. This grace and contentment are running like a river through my soul, deep and wide and strong, and no matter the pools and eddies, the tree branches and ice, the dams and obstacles, on the surface, the current is running beneath, and I know and feel that it is there.


And today has a little bit of sun, a little bit of cloud, a little bit of cold, and I think this afternoon I might walk down to Bernice's and drink tea and read Wind from an Enemy Sky, by D'Arcy McNickel, for my Lit class. Or perhaps I will look through my writings of the past year and try to figure out what I'm going to read at my (gulp) reading this Wednesday night (EEP!).


On to being productive . . . at least a little. Happy Sunday, everyone!