May First

Tomorrow, actually today almost by now since it is long past my bedtime this Wednesday night, is May First. In 1999, nine years ago, I met someone on this day who would change me forever although I was too busy chopping wood to know it at the time. That person, while no longer a part of my life, still influences my thoughts and actions daily and I wish I had a way to be more articulate about the gratitude I feel towards them both now and likely always.

So May First is already a big day in my life, you see.

This year May First has yet another layer of meaning laid over it as well, one I did not realize until I was interviewing someone for work today and, just after introducing myself and just before asking them intimate questions about one of their most triumphant experiences, was typing the date in my fly new FileMaker Pro database: 04.30.08, the last day of April--the day before the first of May. Earlier this spring, not long ago at all, I had an airline ticket for May First from Accra, Ghana to San Francisco via Heathrow because tomorrow is the day I was scheduled to return from Africa, from three months of building a new school in a refugee camp there. It is a trip on which I did not go as part of this year of traveling, for a wide range of complex reasons, but that decision to stay home did not erase the ache I've felt for the righteous work I would have done there and all the ways I would have grown in the process.

Who would I have been on May First this year if I had gone to Ghana? Not having ever left on that journey I have no way to know for sure; I can only guess. I assume my hair would have been longer by now, and my skin darker, and my waist slimmer. I predict I would have eaten new foods and met amazing people and probably have gotten sick somehow, somewhere along the way--likely from the snails that carry worms that carry death--have you heard about them?! And, I know that while I would have learned a million other incredible things both personally and professionally I would not have learned the lessons I did by staying home. I'd have used the trip, and the work it would have necessarily entailed, to learn and grow and try new things but also to distract myself from another kind of work, the kind done not with hammer and nails, paper and pencils that is necessary when building a school but the work of one's own heart. That is what I have been doing while I was supposed to have been in Africa, and that is how I have ended up where I find myself this May First, right where I am meant to be.

So in honor of May 1, 1999, I am going to put on some Beastie Boys and maybe eat some popcorn and remember the days spent living and learning on Fell Street and I will express my gratitude in the silent way I know how. Maybe if I'm really brave I'll try to tell that person how much they have meant to me all along, even in the confusing times that came later and despite how mean I was in the end because I didn't know any other way to live with such a deep, hot anger at myself for not being able to try harder and with such a huge heartache. Or maybe I will just iron my clothes for tomorrow and go to sleep--that would be a tribute to May First too, in its own way. I guess May First, like any day in this life, can be honored and celebrated by abandoning every should and supposed to about observing the passage of time and instead just by living the time in this very moment. Very uncharacteristically Buddhist of me, I know. I guess that's what all this traveling can do to a person...

New!

Sitting on my bed in my new house in North Berkeley I am writing this post on my new computer, the one that I ordered four days ago and that was made just for me according to my specifications (okay in China yes but still...) and that came across the Terrific Pacific via Anchorage, Alaska and that I picked up at the UPS store today and that I started up tonight and that will allow me to blog with speed and watch movies and talk on Skype and all the things I have never been able to do on a computer before.

New new new...I am so excited! It will be hard not to stay up all night trying to discover every fun feature. Photo Booth? Garage Band? Oh wow. Who needs to sleep when there is YouTube to be investigated for the first time, ever?!

My new MacBook is a-MAZE-ing, as Kelli would say from all those hours watching Little Einstein. Now I just have to name it. Yes, I am that silly quasi-animist girl who personifies lifeless objects--some of them, anyway--have any of you met Pierre? Yes, exactly. My first Mac that I bought in 1995 when I graduated from college was named Abdul. Then in 1999 along came Elliot, just in time for my second round of graduate school. Now, eight years and one pirated laptop later, the latest addition to my Mac family has been long in coming and so I am going to have to think of a very good name to welcome him/her to the community. It might take awhile but I will report back once I figure something out.

Of Blessed Memory

(This is not actually my own iBook and you can tell because first of all mine was the total base model, not even the G4, and also because I would never have a pink comforter on my bed.)


My computer has breathed its last. Just as I was settling into my new home and had finally gotten my hands on the wireless password, a software update pushed my vintage 2001 iBook over the edge and now no matter how hard it tries it can't even find the Internet.

So much for blogging more consistently, for now. But I must take this moment to offer my sincerest thanks to Aubrie for coaching me on the ins and outs of MacBook purchasing using the educators' discount, to Ben for answering my million questions about *everything* Mac-related, and to Kevin at the Apple Store for Educators who hooked me up with my new machine, currently being custom-assembled in China and then headed this way. I even paid for the expedited trans-Pacific shipping. Yeah, baby--I cannot WAIT until it gets here!

It may be difficult to understand why this new purchase is so exciting, unless of course you have ever seen me burn through 10% of my battery just trying to check my email. I have never watched a video on my machine (oh, except for on my purple iMac, bought in 1999 when I went back to graduate school and even on there I could only watch DVDs--nothing online) and my one attempt at Skype failed miserably. This is going to be a whole new laptop world for me! Now I just have to get on timbuk2.com and order a case worthy of its new contents and I'll be all set.

Long Lost Traveler

(this is a picture of Heidi and me in the kitchen of the Big House at Esalen--check out my hipster apron! they're certainly not flattering in a body-conscious sort of way but are a must with that much cooking going on)

An email recently arrived in my inbox with the salutation "Hello long lost traveler!" I have not been lost, although I did lose consistent access to the Internet--a problem that continues even to this day--and so it has been almost a month since I wrote. Here's the bullet-point update of what has happened during the past weeks, in no particular order:

•I was planning a two-person trip to India but my travel companion-to-be thought it best not to go.

•I began to plan a solo trip to India but then accidentally got a full-time job for the months of April and May.

•I went to what felt like a million but was actually only four interviews in my search for something new to do in the fall.

•I moved to a new house.

•I found out a very good friend and former colleague of mine is having a baby.

•I angered a few people.

•I made amends with someone important to me.

•I heard from a few voices from my past.

•I celebrated Passover with my new East Bay community.

•I ride my bike to work and back home every day now.

•I put a huge load of stuff back into storage.

•I taught Rebecca's class for a week and a half while she and Mark were on their honeymoon in Italy.

•I lived and cooked at Esalen in Big Sur for awhile.

And the rest, as they say, is history. My days have been quite full--that is one reason I have not written. Also circumstances have not exactly been working in my favor, between my time in Big Sur where there isn't even cell service much less more advanced communication technology to my new house in Berkeley where the wireless password remains a mystery, and as a result I have not had access to the Internet with any consistency. Even as I type this I am shamelessly scamming off one of the neighbors. So, hopefully once that is resolved I will be able to offer somewhat more frequent updates. It's not for lack of material that I haven't written.

Coming soon: more! news! from a traveler who's not so long lost after all.