Of Course She's a Kotleba Girl

My cousin Anne is amazing. After college, which she attended on a basketball scholarship, she joined AmeriCorps and eventually ended up working for an organization called Hands On Gulf Coast. She has lived in and worked to rebuild Biloxi, Mississippi, for the past two years and runs a non-profit there where adolescent criminal offenders can attend art and community service classes in lieu of doing time in juvenile hall.

Or, that is what she usually does at least. Not right now. Right now she has been evacuated from her brand-new apartment on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico, protected wetlands right outside her door and all. She is directing a shelter in Biloxi for family who are complying with the mandatory evacuation order, reporting directly to the executive director of the American Red Cross. In her most recent text message she not only sent me this image of Hurricane Gustav looming on the horizon this evening but also wanted me to know that based on donations from local businesses and organizations it looked like tomorrow's breakfast will be Pop Tarts.

Anne and I often joke that our brothers are Kotlebas in captivity and we are Kotlebas in the wild. Nathan and Steve have wives and homes and retirement funds and dogs. As for now, at least, neither Anne nor I even have health insurance. But while we respect our brothers' choices, we know that we are living what is to each of us a meaningful life doing righteous work.

The last I heard from her was just before dinner when she reported that the phones were out but text messaging was still working. Some places had power but some did not. A few of the gas stations were out of fuel, unable to continue to meet the demand of people filling their tanks to drive further inland. I asked her if she was afraid and she said no, that she had chosen to stay because if she didn't it would make her nuts to wonder what was going on at home, in the community she'd be leaving behind. She asked me to send this photo along to our family, and I thought I'd post it for all of you to see too. My phone is on and available for middle-of-the night SMS and my fingers are crossed. And, I know it's never as bad to be in an adventurous place as it is to be the person hearing about being in the adventurous place. I've lived in Israel, remember? But this time the tables are turned and even though she's not worried, I am. She's my partner in gone away somewhere-style crime. I hope you get some sleep and that whatever Pop Tarts you get for breakfast are your favorite flavor, girlfriend. Rock on. You will, you already do, have amazing and extreme stories to tell.

Almost Over

It's been weeks since I've written and I'm sure by now you're sick of stopping by to check and see if anything's new and once again, seeing a photo of me sitting in my office eating a peach. The reason for the pause in posts has been twofold: first, I've been working anywhere from twelve to fourteen hours a day every day for the past three weeks since I got back from camp. No really. Yesterday was my first day NOT at school since August 18th, and the only break the week before was a twenty four-hour relay up to the mountains and back for the last night of Session Four and for closing down camp. Getting ready for any new school year is busy, but a new school year at a new school with all new teachers and a new principal? Overwhelmingly time-consuming. I'm headed back over there today. Sigh...my carrot at the end of the stick is laps in the pool after I'm done (ha! done?) working: free access to the Mills College pool, aw yeah--one of the reasons I took the job.

So yes, this year's adventures are drawing to a close, slowly but surely. I now own a car and have firmly established my professional identity at my new job. The apartment hunt continues but is almost over, I can tell. The upcoming final post of this blog exists already in draft form, awaiting the addition of many recent photographs I've been taking in the process of documenting my new life.

For whom am I taking all these pictures? Me, to remind myself of how far I've come and to prove to myself that with incredible effort and energy, with the investment of a lot of time and strength, I am indeed pulling it off--for the past fifteen months I have been reinventing my entire life and while of course I will need to keep working, as we all do, at making it my own life and not other people's every single day the foundation has been laid and from here I just get to build it up into whatever I want.

What have I done, who have I met? Where all did I really go when I went away? These are questions I am asking myself now. In some ways it seems like I did everything I planned on and then some, in other ways it seems like I did nothing at all that I'd expected. I met wise teachers and strong families and new friends. I fell in love--who wouldn't on an adventure like this?--but like many other things about this year's journey, that connection did not sustain itself once I left the place it had been found.

So now it is almost Septemeber and I am almost home. I am seeing many ways to reflect on my travels: if I choose I can sit and think deeply, reflect upon the lessons learned and taught, the intention behind the trips I did or did not take throughout the course of the year. I can look through photographs and artifacts, I can send email or talk on Skype to people I've met and then left behind or who moved on themselves. I learn from all of that, from my thoughts and reflections and memories but also I see another way I can experience everything I've done since I first went away somewhere: I can take everything that is now history from this year gone by and put all I've learned into practice into my life going forward as I continue to make it just that: my life. No one else's. Terrifying. Liberating. I'm ready. Off I go, or perhaps onward is a better word, somewhere, to continue to grow into myself.

Coming soon: fin.

What I Look Like Today, What I'm Thinking About Now

I have been living at camp for eight and a half weeks. I am dirty and ready to go home. At the same time it is beautiful here and the community is like none other and I never want to leave.

My new job at Mills starts on Tuesday. I still have no apartment in the East Bay and I realize that I need to buy a car. Between now and when I leave I have to pack, clean my office, prepare an end-of-season report, debrief with the participants of a fellowship I've been mentoring, evaluate both my supervisor and my supervisee, lead services, run an all-camp program, and say farewell for now to people who won't be around when I get back. This is it: the nomadic life I've been living the past 15 months is really about to come to an end.

With that I am starting to think this blog's shelf life might be about to expire, too. It was created to tell the stories of my year away from what had become my life, of my adventures and exploits everywhere from the tall tall trees to the occupied territories and beyond. Soon I'm just plain going to live in Oakland and be a teacher again, before long I will eat off my plates and sleep in my bed and get dressed in clothes I've forgotten I even own. Is any of that still blogworthy? Not in the same way, that's for sure. Teaching is an adventure but there are already tons of blogs that talk about that--I've even had one, myself. Do I want to keep writing? Does anyone want to keep reading? What is the value to writing if all you have to tell are everyday stories, not global adventures?

These are all things to consider. In the meanwhile, as Debby would say, here is a photo of me from earlier today taken while I was eating a juicy late-summer peach and talking on Skype to one of the people who has been instrumental in not just my success this year but in my growing up as a whole: my younger brother Nathan. Love you, funk soul brotha, and I can't wait to see you again soon. Thank you for all you've done for me this year and always.