My plan: a boring-type post. March 26, 2009

Hello.

It’s been a while. Too long. Really? Too long? I’m not sure that that is a fair statement. It has been longer than I would have liked since my last post. I’m sorry. However, too long implies that something has changed because of my negligence… that it is too late, too much to explain, that too much snow has come between us and the line is blocked. I don’t think this is true. I think that I will write this and that nothing will have changed between us in the time that it took me to post it. This is why the collective is so marvelous. Everything can change, but you’ll still be the collective that I know and miss.

I’ve even drafted a few posts in this time… but not finished them… so they never got published.

Here it is — the end of term. Less than a month until the last exam. ! And then, the plan is as follows:

• 10 pm, April 22nd: finish philosophy of science exam
• 6am, April 23rd: catch flight to Vancouver from Moncton
• 12:30 pm, April 23rd: hope that there is someone to pick me up from the airport, do mad dash to home to collect remaining gear, eat lunch (sushi?!)
• 4pm, April 23rd: Return to YVR to meet friend arriving via plane from Moncton.
• 6pm, April 23rd: Catch bus from Vancouver to Kamloops
• 11:30pm, April 23rd: Arrive in Kamloops, get to camp, set up tent, sleep.
• 5:30am, April 24th: Wake up.
• 7am, April 24th: Plant some trees.

I am excited! But I will not be in Vancouver for very long. I’ll be back at the end of the planting season (late july), and then am taking off to Nelson for the 7th of August. In this time we need to do some hanging out. Is anybody going to be around?

Also, is anybody not working the day of the 23rd? I do not have a ride from the airport yet as my parents are working that day. There is lunch in it for anybody who wants to hang out/pick me up.

I realize that this was not a great post. But it was informative as to my plans, and so we can do some meeting up in Vancouver and story-swapping properly.

I love you all.

- Katy

P. S. It snowed here a few days ago.

Grow Up March 16, 2009

     So two Saturdays ago, I got a phone call from home with news that my already slim family has again lost more members. My uncle’s been working away from home in Dubai for a long time so my aunt and cousin decided to go visit him recently. The three of them got into a car accident as they were touring the UAE. My uncle and cousin died on the spot. My aunt was in a coma until the following Sunday night. Currently, she recognizes sensation in her fingers and toes but is immobile because her jaw and most of her left-side body is broken. She’s been moved yesterday to a hospital near home in Korea, but she’s asking to instead go home to England, in which she lived for a bit 15 years ago.

     Written out like that in one paragraph… I’m amazed at how dry it all sounds. There has been articles on it in several Korean newspapers – all just as dry – but even as I read titles like, “Korean Family Dies in UAE Car Crash,” I’m not feeling it. This is the kind of shit that happens in second class Korean drama series. My cousin was only 25. She was one of the few cousins I had who I could talk to without feeling awkward. I didn’t know how to respond when I first got the phone call. For some reason, I felt guilty and ashamed. Guilty for having neglected family and old friends lately under the excuse of being busy then ashamed for always having complained about how difficult college-life could be. Always whining, complaining, and asking for attention and comfort. Always just about me, me, me. I wasn’t even sure if I was sad, or regretful, or just pretending to be both so that I could feel sympathetic for myself. Sure, I cried. A dormmate found me and gave me a hug. Then I folded laundry, went to the mall with some friends, went to a dinner with some people from church, stood blankly in my room for a bit, then went over to a friend’s room and asked if he had anything short and funny to watch. All he had was an old episode of that 70’s show. I said it was fine and proceeded to watch and laugh whenever the laughing sound clip played.

     I got through the rest of the week the same way, keeping myself busy and bubbly but pausing every now and then so as to not be drained by my own optimism. Whenever I’m on the phone with my dad, I’m struggling to crack jokes and keep my voice chipper. I just feel like it’s not my part to be the depressed one. He’s probably taking it the hardest since my aunt’s been more like a mother to him than a sister. I could tell he’s lost his usual calm. He’s losing almost everyone around him; my mom and I are all he’s got left. It’s strange when you hear your dad admit that he is “sad and scared” for the first time. He’s asked me to stay in Ithaca during spring break while he’s in Korea helping to settle everything down – it’s at least one less thing for him to worry about. Another dormmate asked how I can seem so unaffected by what’s happened… unaffected… am I? Maybe I’ve gotten immune to feeling sad for other people now. Or maybe I’m just not hit by the reality of it yet. In part, I’m dreading this isolated week of spring break but in part, I’m relieved that I can just take this time to cocoon and organize my thoughts. Daniella has also suggested naps. I’ve taken my first one today (I never nap during the school year). It helped.

     I need to learn to write fun posts and not just downers like this. I will find something funny to write about. I promise… I think.

Dear Vancouver March 15, 2009

Hi, Vancouver.

I don’t know what it is, but when I’m around you, I feel important. I feel loved and admired and necessary, and I feel I understand you in ways that others overlook while you see things in me I never knew made it past the cold read. Each drop of rain or brisk flutter of air lends itself to the ensemble I admire and there is absolutely nothing I would change. You make me feel surreal, so much that I expect to turn around and see cameras following the way my scarf pulls at my hair while I do a long-eyed glance over my shoulder and I therefore calculate every step I take just in case you see me. I enjoy those long-panning, traffic-stopping moments. You humble me, you hug me, you’re the perfect friend, and a lovely place to be. You’re there when I am alone in the crowd and when I’m part of the crowd. I like that you understand that I sometimes say things I don’t mean but you always know what I mean to say. You make me smile inside and out.

The trouble, I suppose, is how misplaced your perfection is in my storyline. When I pull back to see every side and every still, you are my biggest influence and yet I feel I can’t put you in check without completely redistributing your very vital being and I cannot let myself do that to you. Now, I find myself at an impasse which brings me to realize that I haven’t been completely honest with either of us. The truth, Vancouver, is that I’ve been seeing someone else for a while, on and off, and it hasn’t been as picture-perfect as you and I. I see us as a deep-souled match that will exist in everyone’s envy, and that I value. Unfortunately, this other hub I’m in is a chemical one. It’s something I feel attached to on a moral level even though I know it’s a downswing. I just don’t feel it is fair of me to continue splitting my attention between you, and between the other and I.

It’s all about how you feel, right? I cannot forever wrap myself in transparent reasons and I feel the more I let you go, the more I know it’s the right thing to do. I have simply found my place, and it is over there. I don’t yet like who it makes me, but I have been sculpting my character around all things good for too long and it’s not who I really am, even though it’s who I really should be.

Nonetheless, Vancouver, know that I have always been perfectly happy with you and that will never change. I think the comfort we have established throughout our sailing has created a sort of odd rift which makes you the only place I consistently wish to leave. No one compares. I just need a place to feel sad, lonely, and afraid, and I don’t want that place to be you.

You sit on my mind as consistently as your coordinates on the globe. Love always.