Adventure

Dear Leigh,

I'm sorry your adventures have been foiled. If that camping trip doesn't take shape, you should take matters into your own hands and just DO something. Maybe the Captain will come along if he knows you're going no matter what.

Personally, I'm adventured out. Our wedding was just about perfect. I wish your family could have made it, but I'm happier knowing that your Dad didn't put himself through extra stress by traveling so far and that you were together as a family when you needed to be.

Back to the wedding, though... It reawakened whatever piety I possess and confirmed my belief that if you act as though something will go right, it will go right (and if it doesn't, at least you won't be so stressed along the way). There were many opportunities for the day to fall apart (in minor ways), yet it never did. Our B&B was disappointing for how much it cost, but we didn't really care. In fact, we'll probably go back again, just for sentimentality's sake. The water smelled like eggs, the floors were freezing, Jeremiah got champagne all over the kitchen, breakfast was kind of gross, and there was a compost bin under the sink...but it all is dear to me.

Our "honeymoon"...well, if I could take a mulligan, I would. I should've known Jeremiah wouldn't really take to cruising (though he loved dinners) and that going places I'd already been would lead to disappointment. They're not quite so magical when you're older and used to being in charge of how you get where you want to go. We had fun, nonetheless, and Jeremiah still wants to travel (thank goodness)...just to less tourist-centered places, perhaps. He mentioned an alaskan cruise...

So that brings me to the adventures of everyday life, which are many. We currently do not know for sure where we'll be next year (we might find out tomorrow), do not know whether I'll be able to find employment this summer, whether we'll be able to go to the beach... Jeremiah got into WVU's MFA program, but they haven't guaranteed him funding. They also haven't denied it. He's supposed to find out tomorrow where he is on the list of those being considered for funding...

I've applied for nearly 15 jobs already, and have investigated several more. My goal is 4 per week. I can get on the sub list for Floyd county schools but have yet to find opportunities in West Virginia... Our lease runs out July 1st, and I don't know if we'll be moving the week before or sooner or what. If we move, we'll need a new place to live, but I can't line that up when I don't know which town to look in... If we're moving to Morgantown I might just collect unemployment until I find a job there rather than begging someone to hire me for two months around here. I'll be able to pack up our stuff, at least.

Annnnd I defend on May 5th, graduate May 8th...

I'm ready for it all to be settled, and I'm frustrated that the schools I've applied to teach at haven't called me back. People HERE think I'm special...my capstone project has been nominated for a Chermside Award and I've been asked to read at graduation...but to other places I'm just another boring resume. I've called to follow-up on applications and the people who answer act as though I'm doing something completely inappropriate by calling with questions...

Every now and then I think "man, wouldn't it be nice if I could just move back home while I look for a job somewhere...eat my parents' food, live rent-free..." But I know I wouldn't be happy with that. Also, I've taken the adult step of marrying Jeremiah, so wherever I go he goes, and I would not take him to live with my parents. We should be able to make it on our own.

My philosophy right now is the same one I had approaching our wedding: believe it'll all work out. It keeps me from losing my mind. Can't wait until this particular bit of adventure is over, though...

On a completely different note: tomorrow is April 16th, and I have no idea what to do with myself. It's kind of disturbing how little I feel, considering how much I felt then. To go to campus or to not go to campus? To recognize the day or to sit inside and play videogames all afternoon? I've found a balance, I think...I'm heading to campus in the morning and leaving as soon as the insensitive younger folks make me angry enough. Then I'm having lunch with a friend of mine, who is the last remaining person here (apart from Andrew) who was actually with me on that day. Weirdly, I didn't know Jeremiah at all, yet... That's what I've been thinking of most, tonight: how much the landscape of my life has changed since then. That and how much I wish the underclassmen would disappear tomorrow so that we who were here can wander our campus in peace.

Anyway, I'll close for now. I could go on and on.

Love,

Kate

thoughts provoked by a week with family

Dear Leigh,

I hope you made it safely home from the beach. It was good to see you in person, though I always wish I had just a little bit more time to spend with the family. Sometimes I fantasize about living in the olden days, when everything was just a carriage-ride away.

When I was out kayaking with my mom, I realized...again...how much she is my best friend but also how much visiting with her and my dad feels like visiting. It used to be very easy, but now I feel compelled to "catch up" and be very thoughtful and polite every time I see them, almost as though they are strangers. We talked about where my brother and I might end up in the next few years while we paddled, and my mom mentioned the possibility of moving out of the house I grew up in. Immediately, I felt as though I ought to be upset. In reality, I didn't mind the idea. That house hasn't felt like home since my old cat died, and, in fact, more than feeling upset that my childhood home might no longer be available to me, I was excited at the idea of my parents living closer to where me and Jeremiah and my brother are.

See, I loved Grammie and Grandpa, but I didn't know them, and they didn't really know me. We visited maybe a handful of times per year. I've decided, partly because of my kayaking realization and partly because of the way my dad seemed hesitant to join in playing music (which he loves to do in groups and especially with me), that I want it to be different for my [theoretical] children and for me, as well. It made me sad that my dad felt like he was forcing himself into mine and Jeremiah's world by joining us with his fiddle, and it made me sad to think that I wouldn't be able to have an in-person chat with my mom for another few weeks, at least, and only that soon because it's summer. I don't want them to be a once-in-a-blue-moon part of my life, though I don't necessarily want a return to the involvement of childhood. It'd just be nice to continue to know them well, to visit easily, and to have my [theoretical] kids know them well enough not to feel shy whenever we visit, as I usually felt visiting Hampton and still feel visiting my Grandma in Pennsylvania.

And that's what I came away with from the beach trip, in addition to good memories and some awesome sunburns. How do you cope with living so far from your parents? I wonder if I'm hoping for something most people don't think of...maybe this is just my way of reacting to a tough first year as a self-reliant adult.

Write soon.

Love,
Kate

Some Coral Imagery for You

Dear Leigh,


It's been a hectic couple of weeks, hence my not checking to see if you'd written back to my last letter til now. My roommate is all married, and I've managed to catch up on all the work I didn't get to do while I was off planning and celebrating.


I also put off replying to your post, because my first reaction was knee-jerk defensiveness, and I've learned that careful thought produces better writing and better decisions, overall.

While staying in this area after I'm out of grad school and building our little piece of country heaven is what J and I have discussed, we've mostly discussed it as what we'll do if I can't find a job I want anywhere else (lately I've been making the assumption that I won't find anything). Your post actually made me bring the subject up with him again, and he said that he imagined us going where I find a good job or, if I don't find a well-paid job that I want, staying in the Southwest Virginia area for a little while so that he can save money for eventual grad school. I'll get a 5-year teaching license, teach somewhere, and when those five years are up...well, maybe the time for J to get his MFA will have already passed, and we'll be living in a new place near his school.

I guess, because I know that it's going to be hell trying to find a job once I've graduated, I wanted to build a dream-future here, too, where the money will likely be. "Plan for all possible contingencies." That doesn't mean that staying is a compromise, for me, because being with J is part of my life plan, too. Having a home with him, wherever it is, is part of my plan. The rest can come when it may--I have no intention of sacrificing anything I want for anything I don't want. I may sacrifice something I want for something else I want--for instance, sacrifice living in this area outside of town (which, I have to tell you, is the most beautiful place I've seen this time of year, and I'm counting every foreign country I've been to) for that dream job in an ugly part of the country, or sacrifice that dream job to live somewhere as beautiful as Meadows of Dan (it sits on the top of a mountain--beautiful hills, covered in fog when the clouds are low). Everything comes at the cost of something else.

My Boston plans were ambitious--excessively so. I haven't got the money. But I still want the adventure. The thing is, I also want this other experience of staying with J.

The way I imagine my life is like that kind of coral that looks like a fan made of veins...do you know the kind I mean? And each vein is a possible path, and each has several paths leading from it, and each path offers the same possibility for fulfilment or whatever. None of them leads backward, really. So, picture J's coral fan intersecting mine, and the intersecting veins not necessarily including Boston, but including dozens of other equally appealing ideas of life that we both have (his fan including some ideas that mine doesn't, and mine including some ideas that his doesn't. It's like a Venn diagram (mixing metaphors; sorry)). I don't see myself following, but rather merging these paths, sometimes taking the detours I want to, sometimes taking the ones he wants to, but always doing what is in the best interest of our security.

I hope that made sense.

Don't worry, I have no intention of following anyone. Walking beside, perhaps, convincing and being convinced to follow routes I/he might not have otherwise taken...but not following.

Though, I admit, I do have the tendency to defer to what others want. J, however, is aware of this, and (almost too often) asks me what I think, what I want, what will make me happy. We'll see how it all turns out...

Love,

Kate

Home Sweet Home

Dear Kate,

When you feel strongly about a given topic, you should air it out like rugs on a spring day. Lest you want those thoughts to grow old and musty, harboring in your soul!

There was a time in my younger days when roommates seemed the way to go. But those ideas left as quickly as they hatched. Like you, an only girl in the family, I was raised with my own room; my own space to write, listen and play music, do homework, hide, and simply be me. I never did well with sharing my personal space. In fact, I can only think of one roommate who fit the bill of independent living in a shared space. With other folks whom have shared living quarters, I remember distinctly thinking like you now think: Only “x” amount of days left until FREEDOM!! Luckily, I was so intent on having my own space, I usually sought out small, affordable living arrangements: one room or studio apartments. So when the stray friend did arrive needing a place to stay, it was usually cramped, but thankfully, short lived.

Having a “home” though has always been an interesting concept. My parents moved to St. Louis my senior year in high school, and I stayed behind. Panama City was my “home” until I realized it was no place to rest my head. Too much negative energy. So my move to Pensacola helped me rediscover a town to call my own. Where my parents live will never be an address for me. Rather, I have always felt drawn to make where my feet land my residence.

Once upon a time, I shared a great little home. However, when things started going wrong with mr. ex, my “home” no longer felt as such. I had to make the difficult decision to pick up and move. There is a point for this thought, and I use it as a gentle warning. My home with the ex started nice: a big plot of land for a garden, walls I could paint, a shed for my creating, rooms with big windows. But I was the one left struggling to keep that house a home. I was the one cleaning, cooking, shopping, mowing, tending, tidying, pruning, vacuuming, washing…time slipping away while I felt alone in my efforts to keep up a “home.” It no longer felt like “ours.” And that is my warning: You with your accommodating ways: Don’t find yourself always doing the household chores alone… you tend to eventually resent the one who was supposed to be the other part of “we.”

I only say this because I continually see you saying, “wherever J goes, I’ll follow.” Now, don’t get me wrong, I like J. And I like his philosophy of not longer putting off living because of the “first I have to’s” (unless it’s a necessary “have to” in order to reach a wanted goal…like “having to…” raise some money to build on a plot of land from granddad). But, on the flip side of the coin, you do have the masters. What does Kate truly want to do, outside of J? And is it something that perhaps J could follow you?? Now, I am ok of Kate truly wants to follow J, I just want Kate to go because KATE WANTS TO, not because J expects Kate to follow. Am I making sense? Part two of leaving ex was because he found contentment; there was no longer a sense of adventure. If I were the kind of person to be happy in one place, then perhaps I could have stayed. However, like J, I believe life is an adventure worth living. I felt I was losing me by giving in and trying to mould myself to another’s life. I was driven to move on, and in doing so, I found a corner of the earth to call my own. And in that corner, I was able to rediscover and reclaim ME.

With my reclaim to the life that is mine, the capt joined in my journey. We share the same sense of adventure, and my home has become “our” home, completely and truly (he even does his own laundry!!). He has opened my eyes to a new definition of home. The capt lost his home to Katrina, and during a weekend outing, he took me to see the concrete slab that is all which remains of the place he once called home. We have learned that home may often be embellished by the objects of furniture and nick knacks collected over the years. But a home, if you’ll excuse the cliché, is truly where the heart is. As in, the capt and I do share the ideas of a nice quiet plot of land with a garden and a writing room, but we also know we would be equally at home on a boat with our only belongings fitting into one bag. Home is where he is, and vice versa.

So, in conclusion, continue to play your patience card, but know your companionship with J is just another simple form of “home.” Continue to look forward to that little house you will one day call you’re your own, but don’t allow those desires to cloud over what you have today. I am excited for your apartment to be, and excited for your future, but don’t forget the now, for it is where we must live.

Peace, and Patience, ma cousin,

Leigh