fCA: I'm thinking it's time to let go. Granted, it's a change that has to happen in me, but it ought to be said nonetheless.
So there. Said.
----------------------
....and I was right. Blast. That was the only thing that made sense but... I had hoped otherwise. Oh well. For now:

relief. peace. and of sadness just a twinge, because most of it I'd already dealt with.

Fast Approaching

Summer. For me, there are two work-weeks and one weekend left until I get to start doing Exciting Things. Things that herald the coming of the new school year, and with that, some very good change. There are some new things on the horizon and, contrary to my belief at the beginning of this summer, two months or so ago, I will get to travel before the summer's out! Which is wonderful, because I absolutely LOVE traveling. I love absolutely every aspect of it: packing bags, driving to the airport, going through customs, sitting at the gate for ever, reading as you listen to the busy sounds around you. I love watching people who are going on other flights (or your flight) and wondering where they're going and what their stories are, looking out the window at the plane mechanics and vehicles toddling around on the tarmac, and guessing what languages the people around you are speaking. Yes, the hustle and bustle of airports fills me with excitement, but really, what's best about traveling comes in the form of two things: people you already know, and places you don't. You see, traveling is the perfect combination of things in life that I love, namely: old friends and new sights; laughter, conversation and exploration.
Habits are well and good, necessary for ordinary, day-to-day life. Familiar places are comfortable and safe, as are the people you see every day. But oh, the highlights of travel. =)Sometimes I want to be an itinerant photographer, just so I'll have an excuse to make it a lifestyle. A girl can dream, no?
For now, though, I will be happy about my two treasures, my two trips to come, and my third treasure, the perfect chaser, the schoolyear to come after them, replete with friends and classes and new responsibilities.
Hah! I started this post intending to write about how good my summer has actually been, and how I might even be slightly sad when it ends, which is true, but... hah! :) I can smell change on the wind, and I'm happy, glad that these past few months have been so good, glad that I have two more weeks to enjoy it, and glad that the future promises to be even better.
over 'n out.
E.O.

Guess what???

I WENT TO A BASEBALL GAME!! Yes! Me! This girl, right here! I hav- sorry, haD never been to a baseball game in my entire life. Not even little league. Granted, my upbringing wasn't exactly conducive to it... more like conducive to soccer matches, but hey. It was really cool. Mostly I just felt.... incredibly American, hah! I did not, however, have a hot dog. Before you groan, don't worry. I had ribs. Which are ALWAYS better than a hotdog- ribs are another recent discovery of mine. :P My friends really laughed at me when I ordered them at Chili's and literally did not know how to eat them... and then proceeded to declare myself in love with them. However, the relationship is well-established now, and ribs will always win out over a hot dog, hands down.
That said, it was a really fun time, and such a new atmosphere. Have I mentioned, I love new things? 'Cause... yeah, I do. There were these little kids in front of us who SO wanted to get on that between-innings camera. They'd jump up and down and wave foam fingers every. single. time. the teams switched.
Anyway. I just felt like proclaiming that to the world. About having been to a ball game. I could go on about the experience, but I have a feeling that I might bore whoever's reading, since baseball games are a fairly common event, from what I gather. :P Suffice to say that I'm glad I got to go.
Over 'n out.
E.O.

They depend on Physics

Rainbows. They depend on physics. You can look read up on it in Wikipedia here and here - yes, I get much of my random information about the world from there, but this particular article is well-backed, and stands unchallenged by umpteen years of school-science. - So. Rainbows depend on the refraction of light waves off of water molecules.
This diffraction/refraction business... it's pretty basic physics, you know? Waves just do that. You can hear it in sound, when a car whizzes by you really fast, and you experience it every day when you look at a glass of water or a puddle. It's a fundamental sort of thing, within how the matter/energy bit of reality works.
Then take the story of the creation of the rainbow in Genesis. If you assume that this account is true, which many Christians do, then that would mean that on the day that God made that covenant w/Noah and creation, about never flooding the earth again... he fundamentally changed some aspect of matter. What precisely that aspect is, I'm not sure... it could be anything from the ability of water to diffract light to the existence of light as a wave and not simply a particle. It could have had consequences as big as the beginning of color.
I like that idea. I like the bigness of it, and am bent on figuring out what the science behind rainbows is, and what other areas of the regular, every-day world it affects, just to be better able to guess at what might have changed that day. I'm too much of a lover of color to be able to resist.
over 'n out.
E.O.

1 AM

At 1 AM, things are reduced to simple sentences:
People always leave me.
Why can't you stay?
Where are you?
I miss you.
I want to be around you; I want to be connected to you.
At 1 AM, people post stupid notes that say from-the-deepest-reaches-of-the-heart things, which they may or may not regret saying later.
That is why only three people who read this blog know me, and everyone else who knows me will never get this address.
So that at 1 AM, when I realize (or revisit) something about my life that I don't like, I can say:
I miss you all. Stop disappearing, slipping through my fingers like so much sand in an hour glass.
Relationships are hard, and we would probably have fought, or grown apart, or taken each other for granted after a while. But I am sad that I did not get the chance find out which, or to do any of those things with you, the people that are gone.
I want permanent people. I think. But I don't know if I dare to act like anyone is permanent... and if I don't, can anyone be?
These are the things with which I wrestle at 1 AM, which will never see the light of... Facebook. xD
Safe travels, dear one.
over 'n out.
E.O.

A Rainbow is a Promise

Yesterday ended a period of waiting. It's end was good- freeing - but also painful. When you finish a fast, you can't go right back to eating regular food... there's some transition that is necessary, and I think that carries over to other kinds of waiting, as well. Today, however, was full of restoration, including a rainbow. I even got to take a picture of it.
A rainbow is a promise between God and his people that he will never flood the earth again. To me, today, it meant that I can depend fully on him. The rainbow along with other things, like beautiful piano music where I didn't even realize there was a piano.
You know how sometimes, when you're really hungry, you eat protein (for me usually a ham-and-cheese sandwich) and you start to feel better, fuller, restored, right after the first or second bite? Sometimes music does that to me, though not in my stomach, of course. It was all the more beautiful for being unexpected.
Anyway.

A river, some ducks, some senior-picture-takers, a book, a friend, a work meeting, a pianist, a rainbow: a promise.

Time & Distance

A post on best friends and how they slowly change and secretly grow more and more into the person they always were inside, until one day you realize you're not really sure who they are anymore, or where, buried inside all the extra layers that time and experience have been piling on, your companion and kindred spirit got off to.

Use your memory, and you will find that this is so. Think of someone from college, someone you knew years ago, with whom you parted ways, only to reconnect, briefly, years later.

I have many friends. They are now who they were always going to be. The older we grow, the further we separate, like branches growing on a tree. I miss my old buds, but I wouldn't, myself, go back to being a bud for all the free travel in the world. (And if you know me,you know I'd give up a LOT to be able to travel freely, without expense)

Perhaps I'm one of those people Zimbardo talks about in this video who always look to the past, lamenting what they've lost. I don't want to be that person. That seems, to me, to be the worst sort of outlook to have, so I'm trying to change it. But occasionally, a stray thought crosses my mind... and I remember.... It's hard not to focus on loss. One of my favorite poems is "One Art," by Elizabeth Bishop. I also really love "i carry your heart with me" by e. e. cummings (both introduced to me by In Her Shoes, and excellent movie that you should definitely watch).
Aaaaanyways. I was just thinking of this one really close friend of mine, and wondering about life... and this post is what happened. :P
over 'n out.
E.O.