A Letter Addressed to You

Dear You, 
     I thought that I would write you a proper letter, since it will be a few weeks before I see you again. 
I am going to the rustic land of the rolling green hills and the cobblestone streets and the rain that escapes from the sky without warning. 
     This past week, more than anything--more than the stress I have felt over packing or the excitement I have felt over going abroad for the first time--I have felt grateful. 
     I am grateful for you, and for this adventure, and for all of the people who I have met through my past travels. They have become my best friends and my inspiration, my home that is not stationary. It is the most wonderful feeling, to have so many people who I love, spread all around the country. Someday soon, they will be spread all around the world. 
     I will be in Scotland from June 26th through July 26th, and I will have limited computer access, so I have scheduled some posts for the month while I'm gone. Keep checking back--I hope that you enjoy them!
     The good news is that, when I come back, I will have stories and adventures to share, both through pictures and words. I can't wait to share them with you. 
     Love, 
     Abby

A Little Gift

During my month in Scotland, I will live for one week with a host family in the city of Perth. The program that I am traveling with, The Experiment in International Living, works with a placement agency in Scotland to match all of the Experimenters with host families. Oftentimes, the placements are made right at the last minute. (For example, I leave in two days, and I still haven't found out who my host family is.)

This past week, I went shopping for a gift to bring to my host family. I wanted to find something that was representative of the unique spirit of New Mexico, without being overly touristy.

This is what I came up with...

I went to two little shops here in Santa Fe to find my host family gift. The first, Doodlet's, is a whimsical nicknack store in the downtown area. Wandering around inside of it, I can find something that reminds me of almost everyone I know. The second store, The Chile Shop, sells--you guessed it--authentic New Mexican chile! It also has cookbooks and beautiful aprons and the most wonderful hand-sewn table cloths and runners and napkins.

At Doodlet's, I found these Guatemalan worry dolls. When my grandmother moved to Santa Fe, years before we moved here, these were the gift that she gave to my sister and me the first time that we visited. The story behind them is that, before you go to bed, you tell a worry to each of the dolls. Then you place them beneath of your pillow. They will take away your worries while you sleep.

This Pinon-scented incense is made right here in New Mexico, and it smells just like the forest, so authentic and woody and natural. I love it. 

Without a doubt, my favorite find are these table napkins from The Chile Shop. They are just so beautiful. I could stare at them all day.

I am excited to meet my host family and live with them for a week. I am looking forward to the evening conversations, to running around in the backyard with the children, to the shared breakfasts, to the chance to learn about their dreams and their hopes and their day-to-day life. These strangers in another country, these people who will hopefully become a second family to me, are giving me the most amazing gift: they are welcoming me into their home. I hope that they will enjoy this little glimpse into my home.

To Be Loved

I recently read Frankenstein for the first time, and I loved it in a way that I have loved very few books. There are so many scenes that affected me deeply. The following is one of my favorites. It is told from the creature's perspective and takes place while he is living in a hovel outside of a little cottage where a family lives. A small hole in the wall of his hovel provides a window into the cottage, and he spends his days watching the cottagers go about there lives. It is here that he receives his first glimpses of love and learns about the concept of family.

"The young girl was occupied in arranging the cottage, but presently she took something out of a drawer, which employed her hands, and she sat down beside the old man, who, taking up an instrument, began to play, and to produce sounds sweeter than the voice of the thrush or the nightingale. It was a lovely sight, even to me, poor wretch! who had never beheld aught beautiful before. The silver hair and benevolent countenance of the aged cottager won my reverence, while the gentle manners of the girl enticed my love. He played a sweet mournful air, which I perceived drew tears from the eyes of his amiable companion, of which the old man took no notice, until she sobbed audibly; he then pronounced a few sounds, and the fair creature, leaving her work, knelt at his feet. He raised her, and smiled with such kindness and affection that I felt sensations of a peculiar and overpowering nature: they were a mixture of pain and pleasure, such as I had never before experienced, either from hunger or cold, warmth or food; and I withdrew from the window, unable to bear those emotions."

(Image via The Bean and the Bear.)

The Journey

The Journey 

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.


-Mary Oliver




(Image via The Stylish Wanderer.)

In Preparation

Today, my mom and I went to The Running Hub here in Santa Fe to buy some trail shoes. All of my tennis shoes are worn to the bone (my last pair of Asics breathed its final breath on my school's camping trip in the fall, where it was rained on, muddied, and eaten by stickers. It was more than the elderly shoes could take).

We were actually in and out of The Running Hub in less than fifteen minutes, which is miraculous for me. I am the most indecisive shoe-shopper in the world. I go through a process of contemplation, deliberation, excessive walking, toe wriggling, shoe exchanging, pros and cons weighing...

But I knew from the moment I tried these Gel Scouts on that they were the ones. They had the same welcoming embrace of my last two pairs of Asics. It was that wonderful, all-consuming familiarity of hugging an old friend after a long time away from each other.

The only downside is that these shoes aren't waterproof. I am going to spray them with a waterproofer to see if I can at least make them a little bit water resistant. If not, I can bear damp feet in the name of taking a journey with these lovelies on my feet.

Here is a little glimpse into my packing for Scotland: my brand spanking new Bathing Beauty One Piece in Green Gingham from Modcloth, and my cozy Fisherman's Pullover from American Apparel. I am running behind on the preparation front. My room is a mess, and--in the spirit of full disclosure--I actually had to make my bed in order to take these pictures. The rest of my room is too messy to serve as a background.

I'm off to do some room cleaning and laundry. I'll be back tomorrow.

Love,

Abby

When We Escape...

"[W]hen we escape like the squirrels in the cage of our personality and get into the forest again, we shall shiver with cold and fright. But things will happen to us so that we don’t know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in.” – D. H. Lawrence

(Image here.)

Wandering Wednesdays: Travel Notes

Last year while at boarding school, a few things happened. The first is that I became a tea drinker. I had always liked tea before, but the readily-accessible hot water in the cafeteria and the swirling mist that cloaked the mountain combined to make me someone who craved a warm cup of Chai or Green or Earl Grey a few times a day.

The second thing that happened was this: I became lonely. I became beaten down and tired and sad and exhausted and hopeless. So when I bought my first box of Yogi tea and realized that each of the bags had little quotes attached to them, I began to look forward to them. They were bright flashes of inspiration, of hope, and I would carry the ones I liked around with me all day.

The third thing that happened because of boarding school was that I began traveling a lot. I had three breaks during the year, and between flying home at the beginning of each break and returning to school at the end, I felt like I was in the airport a lot. A few days before one of my flights home, I made myself a cup of Yogi tea and really loved the quote attached to the tea bag: "There are three values: Feel good, be good and do good."

I think that what struck me about it was the simplicity. There is something so beautiful about the idea of being good. Being worthy. A person who makes other people's lives better. This idea--so simple, so fundamental--is surprisingly easy to forget in our modern world. We place emphasis on other values. I don't think that I need to list them off, but I will anyway. Money. Success. Talents. Possessions. Reputation.

So I liked the idea of there being only three values. Feel good. Be good. Do good.

A few days later, sitting on a flight bound for New Mexico, I had an idea. Why not share this quote that I loved with other people?

I took a piece of paper from my notebook and copied the quote onto it. Then I folded it and put it into the seat pocket in front of me, in the hopes that another traveler would find it and be inspired by it, if only for a moment.

Since then, I have heard of other people doing this: leaving postcards with messages on them in public places, folding notes inside of books before they return them to the library, placing their favorite magazine on a bus seat so that someone else will find it.

I think that there's something lovely and mysterious about this. I will never know if someone found that first note, or any of the notes that I have left afterwards. And if someone did, that person will never know who left the note. They will only know that someone wanted them to find it.

I think that's kind of beautiful.

Before I leave for Scotland, I plan to write out a few notes to leave on the plane and in buses or restrooms or wherever else some traveler might find them.

What about you-- Have you ever left a travel note before? If you haven't, what would yours say?

(Image one here--another of my favorite Yogi tea bag quotes. Image two here.)

In Two Weeks...

I will be in Scotland! 

I am traveling with a program called The Experiment in International Living. I'll be spending the month of July exploring Glasgow, living with a homestay family in a rural village, sea kayaking and hiking on the islands off of Scotland's coast, and wandering the cobblestone streets of Edinburgh. 

I could not be more excited. 

Until then...I will be packing. And cleaning. And getting my hair cut. And reading Frankenstein. And buying waterproof sandals. And packing some more. And daydreaming of this: 

Sorry that the blog has been quiet for the past few days! I hope to squeeze in several more posts before I leave, including some special "Wandering Wednesday" posts. 

Love, Abby

P.S. This quote:

“We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.” –Jawaharial Nehru

(Image one. Image two.)

Love That Dog

On the last day of second grade, my teacher Mrs. Schumacher (who remains one of my favorite teachers to this day), gave me a gift.

This book. 



Written by Sharon Creech in blank verse, it tells the story of a boy named Jack who hates poetry. He loathes the poems that he is forced to read in his poetry class and rolls his eyes at the assignments given to him by his wonderful teacher, Mrs. Stretchberry. In the course of the book, however, he learns that he has something to share with the world through his words. The book culminates in him telling the story of the dog that he loved and then lost.

It's a funny, sad, whimsical book. Mrs. Schumacher gave it to me because she knew that I loved poetry. This book, which explores Robert Frost and Walter Dean Meyers and Arnold Adoff, is filled to the brim with poetry, in a way that allows the reader to decide what he or she finds beautiful, which poems evoke emotions, which poems seem inexplicable.

Today, when I decided to write a post about Love That Dog, I pulled it down from my bookshelf and took it outside to take some pictures. When I opened it, I found a folded note inside.



It turns out that the note was my response to one of the suggested activities in the back of the book: Choose your favorite poem at the end of Love That Dog, and in your own words, explain what the narrator is trying to say. 
























I had chosen Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," and this is what I wrote:

You must take chances in life, and be persistant [sic]. Sometimes the only way to enjoy life is to live on the edge. 


I have to remember to take my younger self's advice. She knew what she was talking about.

(Images taken of Sharon Creech's Love That Dog.)

Sunlight Always Comes

I woke up this morning to a world that was just becoming light. My first thought was that I could go back to sleep and take the SAT II on a later date. My second thought, when I walked out into my living room and the cold air of the swamp cooler pressed against my bare legs, was that this was the way that mornings felt in summer.

It was summer. There were cherries on the trees outside. The grass was soft and warm. The world was already transitioning from halfway illuminated to bright and full, and here I was. Standing in the living room. Eyes half-open. Getting ready to take the SAT II.

I think that my values have changed in the past year. I have gained a better understanding of the life that I want to seek for myself. I know that I want to waste as few hours as possible staring at SAT prep books and that I want to go to a college that places emphasis on learning, rather than prestige or status or achievements that lack real meaning for the achiever.

And yet.

I was scared out of my mind this morning.

I was scared when I pulled my clothes from the dryer and got dressed. I was scared when I placed two Clif bars, a handful of mints, three #2 pencils, my wallet, and my admission ticket into my purse. I was scared on the ride across town to the testing center, and I was scared standing in the too-hot sunlight out of the too-big building with too many nervous kids. I was scared sitting in the library waiting for the test to begin and watching my friend Sophia through the library's glass windows as she waited to be led to her testing room. I was scared staring at her orange backpack and her bottle of water, wishing that I had brought a bottle of water, too.

More than anything, what I wanted was to walk downstairs to the school's dark basement and run around it ten times. I wanted this really badly, in the same way that I wanted to take off my long-sleeved undershirt, which was about to give me a heat stroke. I wanted to take it off and step outside in my tank top and never turn back.

But I didn't do this.

I took the Literature SAT II. It is composed of several passages, each accompanied by a set of questions. Some of the passages were so beautiful. One of the poems was the kind that I would have read over and over again if I had been at home. I would have memorized its lines without trying, held it to my chest as if the rhythm of the lines and the fullness of the words could seep into the core of me.

This poem was one of the last on the test. By then, a few of the students next to me had finished their tests and were staring at the ceiling or rolling their pencils forward on their desks and catching them before they fell off. I finished the last set of questions and flipped back through the test to answer a few questions that I had left blank. Then, just before time was called, I re-erased a few erase marks.

That was it.

My shoulders loosened, and my fingers relaxed. We had one more section to fill out before we could leave: a statement to be copied in cursive and then signed. It took one boy ten minutes to copy the statement in cursive because he was so used to manuscript. I watched as he stared at his paper too closely, his fingers tensing, trying to get the letters right. When he looked up and saw that he was the last person, he addressed the whole room with a loud "sorry." We all laughed. It didn't seem to matter now. What did cursive writing or minutes on a clock matter when compared with a crazily important sixty-minute test designed to prove one's encompassing knowledge of a standard high school subject?

What, in truth, did life matter when compared with a crazily important sixty-minute test designed to prove one's encompassing knowledge of a standard high school subject?

The answer, of course, is that life matters more. Snow and red dresses and music and the outdoors matter more. Cherry trees and soft warm grass and early mornings spent in bed matter more.

We walked through the library's glass doors and escaped into the world outside.

(Image one here. Image two by Escape Photography.)