Archive for the ‘Stories’ Category

Holi: Festival of Color

Sunday, April 14th, 2013

The holiday  Holi was a couple of weeks ago but this weekend at University of California, Berkeley the Indian Student Association put on a festival for Holi. Many people have heard of these festivals of color where people by colored powder and in a giant mosh pit of people everyone throws color at each other.

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A giant throng of people gathers and takes part in this festival each year; this is my second year taking part and it really is an amazing thing to experience. You can find last year’s story of Holi here

At times there are so many people crammed into one space it is hard to breathe, impossible to see if you are as short as me, and in the mist of color filling the air there are shouts of joy and surprise as color explodes across people’s hair, face and bodies in a huge spray of vibrant color.

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A big group of my friends all came to the festival and we all stuck together in the massive crowd, dancing, screaming and throwing color at each other. It really is an experience everyone should have at some point in their life at least once.

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Our faces were covered in a huge array of colors, it felt like every part of me had been dyed a different color.

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After the war of color is over, everyone looks so different with a mask of colors changing the features of faces that are so familiar yet entirely altered.

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I can’t wait for the years to come where we can celebrate again and again the vibrancy of our lives and the world.

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Israel: The Bedouin Experience

Wednesday, March 27th, 2013

This day marked the end of the first leg of our journey in Israel. We woke up early, bags packed, and lined up on the curb like children waiting to board the school bus for their first day of class. We ate our last breakfast at Nof Ginosaur and watched the waves lap on the beach, our last sight of the Sea of Galilee. It was a sad and exciting moment to leave behind the place we had called home for the last three days in order to branch out and find a new home in Israel. We had one stop on the way before out final destination for the day could be reached; we had eight new members to pick up and join our merry crew.

Everyone knew that at some point in the trip we would be joined by eight Israeli soldiers who would accompany us on our trip to give us a little taste of what life is like in Israel for people our age. They were not coming to protect or guard us, they were coming to be our friends and peers. At first I was a little wary of this, I wasn’t sure what it would be like, whether we would get along, or whether we would really connect at all. What I didn’t know was how much I was going to miss them by the time they left, or how much I miss them still. I never expected to grow so close to people whom I had gotten to know in the span of five days, but I do.

We picked them up at Modin, a modern booming city that is rapidly expanding. At a bus stop around the corner from where we parked, our newest friends waited for us. Full uniforms and army bags, they came onto our bus and very quickly changed our entire experience. We all tried to welcome them as much as possible and talk with them.

We only where with them for a few short minutes when we went to our first stop of the day, an Eco-Farm that is entirely sustainable and zero waste. Everything here is grown and nothing is thrown away. We stopped in this green little oasis full of rows of farming and little huts where people lived. We toured all over the place and even got to make some homemade pita bread on an open fire.

We had some free time so we all wandered around the farm by ourselves and could check anything out that we wanted to see. I wandered off to go to the recycling tent where people leave belongings they no longer want so that others may utilize them as they desire. The tent was dark and not lit but it was in this room where the lives of people where left behind when people grew tired of their old hobbies or old books. A tent full of things brought from all over the world and later no longer desired or useful. I leafed through the discarded  books and found a copy of a Nadine Gordimer short story collection that I tucked away and took away with me. A little piece of literature that had been abandoned in Israel, picked up and brought to a new home across the world.

When we left the farm our conversations with the soldiers really began. Our first real experience with them was trying to play musical chairs… on a moving bus. As everyone ran around laughing our bus driver was yelling at us in Hebrew and it was so much fun but a little dangerous. As we were playing we began to hit windy roads which marked the changing of our surroundings. When we finally found our places again we looked out our windows where there were no rolling green hills any more, instead they had been replaced with deep desert valleys and sand dunes. Scene after scene of desert barren lands brushed by our bus windows for about an hour before we found ourselves descending into a valley surrounded by sand dunes. As we did we could see all sorts of little villages that we were told were from refugees and illegal immigrants who had set up settlements in the desert. Children sat on sand dunes and wild dogs roamed the desert, watching as we went by in our air-conditioned bus. It was an odd unsettling feeling that provoked the ever present feeling that maybe things are not as fair as we wish they could be.

We made our way down winding desert roads to a small oasis surrounded by palms. This would be our station for the night, the Bedouin encampment in the middle of the desert. As our bus pulled in we looked at the stables of camels and donkeys on the outskirts of the encampment that were fenced in with giant tree trunks of palms.

We dragged all of our luggage from the bus and left it aside for later. We had our introduction to the Bedouin experience in a goat hair tent roofed with palm leaves.

Standing above a fragranced fire, we were told about what it meant to be a bedouin. The wandering nomadic lifestyle that was lived by these extremely hospitable people who lived out in the desert in places somewhat like this. The entire time though we were all painfully aware that this “Bedouin Experience” we were able to take part in was at its very foundation nothing like real Bedouin life.  This was a comfy tourist “resort” that aimed at a genuine experience of Bedouin life that could never really get close to the way these people live their lives.

Hospitality and generosity towards visitors was highly important. As we sat listening attentively on the floor we were served tea that was made on the fire right before us. It was probably the best and most interesting tasting tea I had ever been lucky enough to taste. It was also really welcomed because at this point I was getting really sick and my sore throat was killing me. I had basically entirely lost my voice, so to have some hot tea was soothing in the best ways possible.

After our introduction to our Bedouin Experience, we went back out to the front of the encampment where we had previously seen the camels and donkeys.

I got camel number 47; a wily, dusty creature that seemed none too pleased to have something sitting on top of it. As I was perched atop the seated camel I was looking about taking pictures with my camera which I held uplifted in one hand and my other I used to hold the harness on the camel. I was extremely unprepared when our guide smacked the camel and it stood up, but not all the way up mind you, just halfway. So I found myself suddenly sitting at a forty-five degree angle with only one hand to brace me for the sudden jolt. I was nearly tossed over my camel’s head as it remained happily only halfway up with its back legs straightened and its front still neatly folded underneath him. After nearly being tossed within five minutes of sitting on my camel, it finally stood up and I was able to experience what it felt like to ride one of these ships of the desert.

Not another five minutes went by before he tried to bite me. It really didn’t like me and I can’t say I was too pleased with him either. Keep in mind, I am afraid of horses, little did I know how much scarier these swaying creatures of the desert where than horses.

After a rough start we all lined up and headed out into the desert at sunset. The swaying steps of the camels really do make their nicknames, “ships of the desert” seem extremely accurate.

We were led out into the rocky desert hills near where we would be staying for the night as the sky slowly turned pink. The horizon seemed to be lit on fire and the stones cast shadows around us as we made our way into the desert.

I forgot to mention that only half of the group was on camels, the other half got to ride small donkeys. The plan was to switch halfway through so everyone had a turn on a camel. Let me just say, things didn’t go as planned. Within ten minutes of our journey into the desert, which, by the way, was not a long journey, half of the people on the donkeys had been bucked from their backs. The donkeys went crazy and after ridding themselves of their burdens decided to wander off into the desert alone. After the difficultly with the donkeys, which were significantly smaller, those who were on the donkeys decided that the much larger and scarier camels where not worth the effort if the donkeys had been this difficult. So I got to remain on my perch high above the desert floor as my camel swayed its way across the desert floor.

As for the others, they decided to walk. The donkeys went their own way and wandered free of their burden off into the sunset.

Our time out in the desert was not very long at all but it was still a great experience to ride a camel into the sunset and watch the pink tint of the sun touch the desert hills.

It is nice to say I have done it, but I don’t think I would ever do it again. So I will leave the camels to the desert and the tourists still seeking the allure of a specifically tourist crafted experience that really only means something to them.

We returned to the encampment for dinner inside the bedouin tents. Mats were laid out everywhere with stands that would later hold our food. We each sat at tables with about four other people and had what felt like private little dinners in a giant tent filled with masses of people. It was a lot of fun getting to know everyone over an amazing bedouin feast.

After dinner we had free time for the rest of the night which resulted in a guitar and mandolin jam session until about three in the morning. Before that though, we had one little excursion to end our bedouin experience out in the desert. It was easily the most meaningful experience I had the entire trip.

Once it got really dark out and dinner had finished we all wandered out into the desert in a giant group. In near silence we headed out into the dark; blind in the utter darkness without a single shred of light, since the moon was not up. Those with flashlights were clung to like bats by the others trying to use any bit of light to see the rough desert terrain we were traversing. I was one of those with a flashlight and my companion was my friend Plia who was one of the Israeli soldiers who had joined us. I talked with her as we walked about the stars in the night that seemed to be the only thing we could see clearly in the dark. We had a great conversation breathed in hushed tones as we walked through the desert. Finally we made our way deep enough into the desert to lose sight of the lights from the encampment (but sadly not far away enough to lose the sound of tacky music being blasted from a party that was happening back where we were staying). So in (almost) complete silence, we individually found places in the dark to sit and just contemplate life, think about the trip so far, and wonder at the beauty of the desert. Plia and I sat together and lay down on our backs, even with rocks digging into our spines, and peacefully watched the stars. I pointed our constellations to her as we lay there talking. To both of our utter surprise as I was pointing out a constellation a shooting star shot across the sky right where I had been pointing. It was such a movie perfect moment, neither of us really seemed to believe it had happened. We both just turned to each other in the dark and smiled, our eyes asking each other where we had both just seen that actually happen. I can’t explain how much that little moment filled my heart with a warmth and happiness that seemed unbounded.

We split up to have quiet time and I saw yet another shooting star by myself later as I sat looking up at the sky and the desert that was bathed in a deep blue that I feel can only be found in the darkest, deepest parts of the sea. There was truly something magical about just sitting out in the desert near midnight in utter silence. This sand, these rocks, these stars, had seen a history on this soil that I couldn’t even begin to imagine. IT was here, out in this desert that Jacob wrestled with God, here out in this desert that thousands of years of history had unfolded. Even though all we could see was the darkness and the hardly lit landscape before us, that space was not empty, it was full to the brim. It was overwhelming to sit under the canopy of heaven and feel like the stars where so close that they were bending the sky in an effort to reach out and touch you. Never have I felt such a connection to the land before; it was enough to bring tears to my eyes.

After our quite time we all where summoned back together by our group leader Itay playing the guitar and singing a Neguin wordless song of praise. It seemed to resonate in the desert and as we all slowly got back together, everyone seemed to know that everything had changed. Everyone had felt something amazing in those moments, each in their own special way. We all gathered together and made a huge huddle around Itay and we sang out in the desert together. Our voices breaking the silence and reaching out across the land. We sang in Hebrew, we sang wordless songs, and eventually worked our way to cheesy American pop music. It was a wonderful progression from the serious and contemplative time we had had, back into a fun and carefree enjoyment of one another’s company. We sang out in the desert at the top of our voices to American Pie, Brittany Spears, and many other songs. With the lighthearted end to our desert quiet time we returned to the encampment renewed and with hearts filled with our experiences.

Back at our tents we continued the lighthearted singing in a jam session. It was so much fun to just stay up all night, singing, having deep conversations, and really getting to know each other besides the normal introductory questions we had been building our friendships upon. It was a night I will never forget.

We slept on the floor of a giant goat skin tent in sleeping bags for only a few short hours. The next morning was a six am wake up call and a long day ahead. It was a bittersweet end to the night; such a great time staying up with everyone, but the lack of sleep that followed would come back to bite me for the rest of the trip.

 

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Israel: Mountains and Mysticism

Thursday, February 21st, 2013

In the early morning aftermath of our New Year’s Eve Party, everyone slowly emerged, none too happily at that. All of us with little sleep and bleary eyes. It was a hard time to be waking up at 6:30am when you didn’t go to bed until around 2am that morning. Regardless, we struggled out of bed and greeted the first day of the New Year with half-tempered smiles and curious minds for the day ahead.

We took the bus through Tiberias and wove our way up a mountain called Mt. Arbel.

The view from the top of this mountain was magnfiicent, though a little hazy, but still many things could be seen. The Sea of Galilee far below, our hotel in the distance, tiny towns speckling the hills, and lots of greenery. The wind blasting at our backs led us down to the way we would be following that would eventually take us to the ruins of an old fortress built into the mountainside.The descent was much more difficult than I had imagined and it felt like we were going down forever. We had to scramble down rocky cliff faces and at all times could see the countryside around us backed by the Sea of Galilee.

Eventually we made it though and came to a leveling out in our descent down Mt. Arbel where the cliffs now towered over us. Looking up at the cliffs you could see the ruins of what once had been windows, rooms, and a fortress in days long gone by.

Then we climbed up uneven stone stairs to enter into the old fortress that was crumbling but still grand. After going into the cliff dwellings, we descended the rest of the mountain. We all walked down the mountain in great contemplation, deciding not to talk with anyone, we all descended in utter silence except for the loud noise from the town below and the sound of the wind rushing past the mountainside. We went down the entire mountain until we reach the cities that just about an hour or so before hand had seemed tiny and extremely distant. It seemed remarkably to have come that far, to look back up at the whole mountain knowing I had been at the top of it. It felt like so much had been accomplished; and it was only 10am.

Next on our trip was the legendary cit of Tzfat, home to Jewish mysticism of Kabbalah. We wove through the streets of this old city, only stopping briefly before an old British Embassy building hat was riddled with bullet holes. It was in moments like this that Israel really did seem like an entirely different world. A world where it was casual to sit in the shade of a war torn building as if it was a wide shaded oak that we took a brief rest under in the bright afternoon.

Everywhere there are little moments where a single thing, a teapot, a doorway, or a bullet torn building that made this experience feel so surreal.

Tzfat is a city of alley ways, closed doors, and art. All fo the small corridors that people bustle down are lined with tables of jewelry, art, and all kinds of artisan creations. Every other doorway houses a gallery of beautiful art that often harkens back to Jewish mysticism.

After a long day of exploring the city streets of Tzfat, jumping between art galleries and trying out unique foods, we wandered through the market areas that tingled with the ideas of Jewish mysticism. After exploring a bit we found our way to the top of the mountain Tzfat is built upon. We stood in a park that held the ruins of an old citadel, long left to waste away under the pressure of time. It was here we learned about a Jewish idea, Tikkun Olam- repairing the world. Tikkun Olam is the idea that we all have a responsibility to try and fix the world we live in to make it a better place; whether that means doing community service, teaching, or any other form of helping the world, we have a responsibility  We came to this place to take part in our responsibility in trying to restore this old citadel by trying to re-establish this place as a park for the people of Tzfat.

As the sun set over Tzfat we all got together and learned a couple of songs on the mandolin and learned what it felt like to belong in a Jewish community. It really was an amazing moment; bathed in shades of pink and yellow, we all felt like a family.

It was a long day, started early, hiked, worked, explored, but it was a truly a great day.

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Israel: A New Place, A New Year

Thursday, January 24th, 2013

On the eve of a new year, I began my newest adventure in the land of Israel. Sleepless night turned into tired morning as the sun wiggled its way under my door. Being jet lagged is never fun, but when you open your door and feel the Israeli sun on your face for the first time, many things are forgotten. I opened the door to a clear crisp sun on a slightly hazy day that seemed to have been sung in by birdsong.

Breakfast was in the same room where we had eaten dinner the night before and the contrast was shocking. The things that we had heard were outside those windows, but couldn’t see for ourselves was now splayed before us in all its splendor. Palm trees and eucalyptus trees swayed in the wind outside of our window, framing the Sea of Galilee and the umbrella spotted beach where the waves crashed down in a slow rhythmic fashion. Hills surrounded us with cities terracing the mountainsides.

The hotel was just the beginning though, it would be our home for the next couple of days, but during the day we would adventure outward and explore Northern Israel. So we hopped on our bus to begin our first day in Israel.

Through the tinted glass of the windows inside the bus I got my first views of the Israeli countryside. In the north, rolling hills and mountains frame the land with their snow-capped tips, which looking down on rows of agricultural countryside in the valleys below. After a ride through the farmlands we arrived at the base of a huge mountain which is now a nature reserve but many, many years ago this was the biblical city of Tel Dan. At Tel Dan, there is a river, the main spring, that comes from the mountain that rushes along tree framed pathways.

It was a beautiful time to be at Tel Dan, fall was still in the air even though winter had made itself a guest here for some time, and the leaves were still yellow. We walked along the paths of Tel Dan that ranged from walkways littered with fall leaves, to pathways made up of individual rocks between which spring water ran, snaking its way between the cracks.

Along the pathways we found beautiful leaves, some in the shape of hearts and others that were large and fan like that came from fig trees all around us.

 

Finally at the end of the beautiful walk through the wilderness we came to the ruins of Tel Dan. Not much left besides the old crumbling foundations of this biblical city that thousands of years ago was a thriving center of religious activity; second only to Jerusalem in its time.

 

We took our very first group photo of all of us together at the foot of the Main Spring. It was a truly beautiful place and the yellow accent of fall leaves made it a magical first stop in Israel.

Afterwards we drove deeper into the Golan Heights of Israel where we took an off-road jeep ride through the old occupied land that was and still is a place of tension.

Our jeep driver was a really nice guy with an odd sense of humour who really seemed to enjoy entertaining American kids with off colored jokes and sarcastic quips.

We traversed the eucalyptus spotted hillsides along muddy gutted back roads in an open aired jeep where there was no separation between us and the Israeli countryside.

Oh and the beautiful countryside we were driving through was also an old land mine area. We were let out of the jeep once and they told us not to venture far for fear of land mines. It was quite an interesting experience being in what some might consider an active war zone.

If being near where old land mines were once was a startling experience, then I was not prepared for our next stop, Mt. Bental. Mt. Bental is a huge mountain, once a volcano, that has an amazing view from high above the world. Standing atop it we could see Damascus, Syria, and Lebanon. As the sign below indicates, from here, on a clear day almost anything can be seen.

The view of the countryside below is Syria. While standing atop Mt. Bental we could hear loud bangs in the distance. We quickly learned that not far away we were hearing the sound of bombs going off in Syria because of their current civil war. It was shocking to be that close to a very active war zone, to hear the ear drum rattling sound of a bombs impact. It makes me shudder, wondering what happened when we heard those sounds from so far away. What about the people who were not as lucky as us to be far away? The people who live there, the people who die there? But here we were sitting atop a mountain, listening to what could very well have been the last sound that some person ever heard in their lives.

In the biting wind we stood at the top of Mt. Bental listening to the sounds of war ring out, it was something you don’t forget.

After Mt. Bental we returned to our hotel at the shores of the Sea of Galilee for an early preparation for the New Years Eve Party. We were all exhausted, I was getting sick, but we all went out for a talk by the shore. A great blue heron stood on a pole of the pier and the sun was setting in shades of soft pinks and purples as we listened to the gently lapping waves of the Sea of Galilee.

It was an extremely peaceful moment of reflection, waiting for the new year to roll in on our heels. The history of this place is unbelievable, astounding, and awe-inspiring. The shore was littered with tiny shells and glinted like secret treasures as I sifted this foreign sand through my fingers. This was my new years, spent in a land utterly foreign to me, yet vaguely felt like home. I never imagined I would be spending my last days of 2012 in Israel, let alone the first week of 2013 there. It was a strange bridging of the gap that was utterly unexpected yet invigorating. This new place, opened new horizons, and I welcomed the new year with open arms with no idea of what lies before me.

 

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Israel: The Beginning of a Journey

Sunday, January 13th, 2013

Whenever I return home from a trip there is always a barrage of questions awaiting me from everyone I know. I love to return to family and friends that are inquisitive and curious about my experiences, but I always feel a sense of disappointment in my ability to answer their questions. How can I put into words so quickly the things that I saw? How can I explain the ways in which I have been changed by the things that I saw? How can I convey the beauty and complexity that fills the world that we live in and how grateful I am for even a short glimpse into these complexities? This is what I am faced with upon my return from any trip, but I feel these things especially now after my return from Israel.

I was extremely blessed to be given the opportunity to go to Israel for almost completely free with a group of my peers from University of California Berkeley through Hillel and Taglit Birthright. I got to fly out of New York to Israel and tour around the country for ten days with about 50 of my peers including eight Israeli soldiers who joined us halfway through our incredible journey.

So, now I am faced with the problem that I always dread upon my return home, telling my story of what happened during those ten amazing days. It is difficult expressing all that happened on my trip because it was truly incredible in so many ways. I made so many friends and saw such amazing things that I do not think any words that I use can do justice to everything I experienced. But I will do my best, I will do all that the limit of words can do for me.

To begin? Let’s start where I did with an alarm going off at 3:30 am of the day my journey began. The day was long with travel, 3:3o wake up, flight left at 7:30am, 6 hour flight to JFK, 8 hour lay over, and then finally a 12 hour flight that landed us in Ben Gurion Airport, Israel. From there a two hour bus ride to the hotel/kibbutz that would be our home for the first leg of the journey.

We arrived, after over 24 hours of traveling, at the shores of the Sea of Galilee at our hotel, Nof Ginosar. It was strange because I had been in darkness, without sunlight, for over a day and arriving at our hotel we were told of the surroundings. Told of hills that shone with the glittering lights of homes scattered along hillsides in nearby Tiberias. Told of the softly lapping waves on the shores just outside from the great Sea of Galilee. Told of many things, but we arrived in darkness. There was nothing to see, we could only faintly hear in the distance the rustle of palm trees and ever so slightly the sound of waves. But we were greeted by darkness and the glow of our hotel’s lights. We were rushed into dinner and saw our hotel for the first time. I was very pleasantly surprised by our hotel, I had had very low expectations for our accommodations because we were receiving them for free, but it was extremely pleasant. We all stumbled in, not really knowing one another, tired, exhausted from travel, and just a little disheveled from our long day, and were greeted by a huge buffet of Israeli food. Everything was so bright, colorful salads, curries, and lots and lots of bread. Famished and tired we ate and began to familiarize ourselves with this new place and one another.

We all headed to our shared rooms in the dark dragging our luggage behind us, ready for sleep. Ready to greet the new day tomorrow. Our very first day in Israel.

 

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The Spirit of Christmas and Santa Claus Strawberries

Tuesday, December 25th, 2012

My family spent a lot of time this holiday season thinking about memories of holidays past. What made things memorable, what things did we hold on to so many years later, was it happiness? Was it disappointment? And if so, why? I have been thinking a lot about this lately and one thing my mother said to me that she remembered from Christmas in her childhood very fondly was when she made things for her entire family. How the act of sitting down and applying oneself entirely to doing something that you just want to do because it would make your family happy. I think that is a good reason to look back on Christmas or whatever holiday is being celebrated during this cold winter season where family keeps us warm and happy; to celebrate not because we feel obligated and tied to disappointment or the gratification of materialistic desires, but the  celebration of loving for the sake of loving. Because they are family, because they are not perfect, and because they are our blood, our flesh, and from them we find meaning.

I realized I do not often give without reason and I really would like to change that about myself. I thought it would be fun to start small, kind of like my mother did in her memory of her early Christmas, by making something for my family to enjoy. What better way to make something they would enjoy than by starting where everyone ends on Christmas? With desserts. I found a nifty little picture on the internet of a little strawberry Santa and decided that would be a great little present to make for Christmas Eve dinner. The website, Operation Santa Claus, had a bunch of fun little Christmasy things to do, but I decided on these cute little bite sized desserts to share with my family.

I took these Santa strawberries to be easier than they actually were at first sight and my adventure in making these began as most attempts to re-create something found on the internet do, with failure. I tried to use just whipped cream as the filling for the strawberries and very quickly realized the error of my ways as they began to deflate, melt, and deform into little haphazard Santas, slightly off kilter and very unappetizing to behold.

The ones on the left side of the photograph are the initial attempts and the right are the later more successful attempts. I realized that the filling had to be sturdier so we made a cheesecake like filling made simply from cream cheese, powder sugar, and a dash of half and half to thin the mixture enough to be piped. Now, with the successful mixture (in a plastic bag used for piping) the strawberries were cut and filled and dressed to look like Santa Claus. The final touch being the sprinkles for little eyes on the cute little bite sized desserts.

They were cute, small, tasty, and a sweet way to end Christmas Eve. It was a good way to give back to my family in a very tiny way that built up our family instead of building materialistic gratification. I wonder if I will look back years from now and remember this fondly as my Christmas memory…

 

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Petrichor

Thursday, July 5th, 2012

Rain drops danced on the window sill, running their fingers gently against the glass with longing sighs as they settled into seas of water only to be disturbed again by the next drop. The tulips wilting on the inside of the window breathed in the warm air of the house, yet still could not bloom as they watched with drooping faces the disturbance on the window sill. All was quiet in the house except for the gentle tapping of the rain on the window pane like a young lover throwing rocks to awaken his sleeping beauty. Across the white walls of the small apartment lay splashes of life that were too wild and untamed to be contained to a single wall let alone one skinny apartment space. The solitary apartment stood isolated on the ground floor of a building centered in New York’s sprawling system of roads, where it alone seemed vibrant and alive. Roads like the pathways of a body filled with the ever awake but seemingly never living people of the city that never sleeps. Separated by thin capillary walls from the bustle of the dark and dirty streets lay the hidden white walls of her home. The macabre symphony of art was pinned to the walls in a random yet insistently purposeful manner that blossomed from a young and wild heart. The Van Gogh imitations to the typography, and the old photographs of people she had never known filled the spaces of the white wall with color and life that she mastered and owned but still was not her own. The very walls jittered with a peaceful happiness where her fingers had traced along the walls as she had run through the tight hallways and rooms. Every window, every space had been filled by her loving hands so no spot would feel alone or empty. She was kind.

Curled in a sea of billowy white comforters, she lay like a goddess who held the fiery force of life in her chest. Silent and still but very much alive. Her red wavy hair lay around her head like a sunset framing her face. Gnarled and twisted it lay like the warriors of fallen battles, stained by their own blood and those of their enemies. She breathed peacefully with her eyes gently closed. Her eyelashes fluttered like butterfly wings and opened. Noses almost touching she gazed into his eyes and he right back. He hadn’t stopped looking. He reached out with a hand and ran it along her cheek, tracing the contours of her face with his thumb until he reached her ear and ran his fingers through her wild hair. She smiled and scrunched her face, twisting her nose to the side slightly as she always did. He laughed. She smiled. They lay there in the sea of clouds built by human hands facing each other, watching each other, listening to the rain as it danced outside.

“We should probably move at some point.” He whispered playfully

She smiled and looked at him with green eyes and watched as the rain danced in his blue eyes. He smiled slightly, the way he always did, as if he was afraid to laugh out loud or widen his face with a smile.

“Why would we move, when we could stay right here and listen to the rain until it stops. We can’t let the rain outlast us can we now?” she smiled as she propped herself up on an elbow to look at him from above.

“Oh ok, I guess we don’t have to move. I was just going to say I would make breakfast… or lunch I guess,” he said looking down at his watch and the hours, which had been thrown to the wind. “Suit yourself then, I am good here.”

He rolled onto his back with his hands clasped behind his head, smiling playfully and closing his eyes. She pounced on him, throwing herself across his stomach. He let out a grunt and a laugh that made his eyes crinkle at the corners.

“You can’t do that!” she howled with mock tragedy.

“It was your choice, not mine.” He shrugged as he grabbed her arms, which assaulted his chest. Holding both of her wrists in one of his large palms he held her tight and she struggled even though she didn’t care if she never escaped.

“Well I changed my mind” she whispered right in his face as she leaned in only inches from his face. It escaped her almost as a snarl as her hair hung in front of her determined fiery eyes.

Just like that she sprang away, dancing out of his reach like a whirlwind of red hair and laughter. Her feet carried her across the wooden floor to the window where the tulips sat sadly waning against the glass. She frowned for a faint moment but it was chased across her face by the noise of the pattering rain. She threw open the window with a surge of motion that shook the tulips and the puddles on the windowsill. She leaned on the windowsill over her flowers staring into the rain. She felt her face so close to it, but it was just beyond her, beyond the window, beyond the tulips, but almost there. She breathed in deeply. Petrichor.

Propped up on his elbows, he surveyed her in the window’s soft light, which cast her hair like fire down her back. He smiled softly to himself watching her as she busied herself among her flowers and things. He shook his head with a soft chuckle, “Every time I get you flowers they just wilt and die, you have to learn to share some of that life that you have or else no one else will get any.”

“That’s not fair, I share everything I have, most of all with my flowers.” She cast him a glance and a wayward smile without turning to face him. With only that sideways glance she let out a less than phased grunt and cast herself down the hallway with a ballerina’s grace away from the billowy comforters and into another room cast with light. Again, he shook his head incredulously at the sprite that flitted around the house.

“Oh! Shoot, I am sorry I totally forgot to tell you, you got some mail yesterday. I didn’t recognize who it was from, I think it was a bank or something. ”

She bent backwards into his view from the room down the hall so he could barely see her outline in the soft light split against the shadow of the hallway. “Really?” there was a note of some sort of expression in her voice he did not recognize. He sat up fully to try and see her face but she was too far. With his head slightly cocked he waited for her to say something else, but nothing else came.

“You alright?” he asked warily.

Her silhouette had disappeared from the hallway now, he leaned in to try and spot her but she was curiously absent.

“Everything is fine, I will be right back.” He watched as he figure passed across the hallway as she went towards the back door where their mailman of five years now still did not understand that that was not their front door. Every day he left their mail at the wrong door for them to discover in a small but haphazard pile.

She walked with lithe and light footsteps a smile on her face and a suppressed shriek of joy that she hid in fear of ruining her surprise. She tried to be normal, she tried to remain calm but she knew that the wedding invitations along with a surprise trip for them to take before they finally got married after almost six years of being together. Her chest felt full to bursting with a joy that could almost not be contained. She picked up the mail that she had disguised as a bank note so he wouldn’t look into it and ripped it open with savage excitement. Two tickets for Paris for their honeymoon six months from now.

Peaking down the hallway to make sure he wasn’t looking she retreated into the corner of the back room and danced wildly in a circle her red hair flying around her as she bit her knuckle to keep from screaming in excitement. She was about to empty the vase of flowers to hide the tickets under the red roses from their date last week when she noticed the other letter. Pausing for an unsure moment she contemplated her next course of action. Holding the flower vase in the crook of her arm still she picked up the remaining letter which must have just arrived and wondered if she should leave it for later and go display the wedding invites. After a brief moment she tore open the new letter without even looking at the return address.

Tapping his foot against the hard wood floor as his bare feet hung over the edge of the mattress of comforters they had built on the floor, he waited. Humming a soft song he had known his entire life he watched from his seated position as the rain fell into the house from the open window above the flower, which gently swayed in the wind. Shaking his head with a chuckle and that little smile of his he pushed himself to his feet shaking off the clouds of comforter to go close the window. She had such life but because of it she seemed to underestimate the fragility of the life of the things around her. That was why her flowers died, it wasn’t a lack of love or life, it was an abundance of it. She was his warrior with her wild hair and fiery eyes. He smiled as he thought of her leaning on the open windowsill as she had done. He wondered what it was like to be her, to be invincible to the world. He placed his hands on the windowsill where hers had rested pushing his face out towards the rain. But he saw nothing, nothing of what she saw even in her place. He tried, he really did try to live more like her but no matter how hard he tried to stop and live a life of carefree joy he would always be the shy boy with too much reservation for his own good. He was a quiet man.

He started to shut the window when the loud crash of the clay vase shattering on the hard wood floor startled him enough to make him jump. That loud crack shattered the tranquility of the house in a matter of seconds, the uninterrupted serenity of their house had never before been disturbed as it was now and it shook his entire being. Then the terrible silence. A silence never before heard or seen. Frozen, the house and its inhabitants, human and plant alike, even the art seemed to leer from the walls, waited on the edge of that vast chasm of silence as the sound of that terrifying silence grew and grew filling every corner of the house until it rang in all of their ears even louder than a scream. The sound that interrupted it was not a bang but the feather soft sound of paper gently floating to the ground to settle as a dandelion on the wind comes to rest on the blade of a serene grass meadow where no human foot has ever graced. That soft but perceivably sound ended the terrible silence but not the horror. With perked ears he listened with a mute tongue but frantic eyes as he heard her soft footsteps coming down the hallway. She was not walking but running very lightly down the hallway, her silhouetted figure eventually blotting out the backlight until she stood before him. She paused for only one moment as they both looked at each other across the room from each other.

“Honey, what-“

He opened his arms for her as he had done so many times before when something was wrong welcoming her into the sheltered harbor of his arms but even as he did so he could see this was different. He never got to finish that question in that moment as she eyed him as if she was a hunted animal and he the vicious predator. That guarded and hurt look in her eyes shut his mouth in one moment. She had never looked at him like that and he felt it like a stake in his heart. He moved in to try to embrace her but in one deft movement she leapt out of his reach towards the bathroom where she slammed and locked the door.

“What are you doing?” he yelled not out of anger but a fear that was slowly welling in his chest. “Please open the door and talk to me! Tell me what is wrong!” He banged on the door with his huge open faced palm. There was no reply. He pressed his ear against the door and listened. All he could hear was the soft rustling of her movements. “Please” he whispered into the door with his eyes closed. The fear had grown inside of him filling every part of his body like a terrible poison feasting on his veins burning them while his blood still pumped. The sickening feeling that something was horribly wrong drew down the corners of his mouth bringing back the lines of frowns that he had almost forgotten and resurfacing the unsure and reserved fear within him.

The rustling stopped for a brief moment and he heard the soft and barely audible sound of a moan that sounded too wounded to be entirely human. That pitiful noise ripped his heart apart and he pounded on the door anew, yelling for her to open the door.

She sat in the bathtub hugging her knees to her chest as she rocked back and forth. She had madly thrown on new clothing and shoes but then lost the strength and seemingly the ability to move at all. So she lay curled in the tub with her knees hugged and one fist held against her horribly contorted mouth as she held back the sobs of a dying animal. Her wild red hair lay wilted against her face, wetted by her tears and fallen in its glory. A dull ringing in her ears muted the sound of the banging on the door and the screams of the man that loved her and she him. Her whole being was numb, that numbness spread like a poison throughout her body until she felt absolutely nothing. The rocking ceased and she lay there in the tub, listless and empty. With the numbness came resolution, not bothering to wipe her face she slowly stood and faced the door.

“Please, just leave me alone. I don’t love you.”

The knocking stopped and the second terrible silence struck like a clap of thunder. Stumbling back a few steps, he stared with wide eyes at the bathroom door. The soft voice which had whispered I love you so many times was now hollowed and coarse. He blinked in shock as he replayed that voice in his mind, the hollow voice with nothing in it at all, no joy, no love, and no life. Looking over his shoulder he took in every moment they had ever shared in this house together, five years of experiences, of life in every ounce of the house that screamed to be remembered.

“I don’t believe you.” He whispered in a voice weak and drained.

The bathroom door flung open and she burst forth like a fire behind closed doors running for the front door. He jumped and intersected her, engulfing her in his broad arms. Grabbing onto her as if he would never let her go she fought like a caged animal. Viciously she kicked and squirmed against him, trying desperately to be free of his grasp.

“Please stop, just talk to me!” He yelled spinning her in his arms until her tear stained face looked right into his just inches apart. He looked into her fiery eyes that had been extinguished with tears and her face sunken not from a few moments of horror but a life time of them.

“Please just let me go.” She whispered in a desperate and heartbreaking voice as she breathlessly beat her hands against his chest. She fought like a rabid animal and refused to stop. “Let me go!” she howled in a voice filled with the pain of a dying animal. The shock of her scream shattered his resolution; he had never heard her raise her soft voice before. She landed a solid hit on his chest and with a loud pained grunt he released her and she fell onto the ground in a distraught heap. She sprang back to her feet and raced to the front door, throwing it open as the rain poured behind her she stopped for one moment. He looked at her with eyes that swam with pain and saw in her nothing.

“Please, don’t ever follow me, and don’t ever look for me.” She whispered as she looked at him, her fiery eyes glinting in the house’s light. Her wild red hair blowing in the stormy wind which gusted in from the noisy street outside, filling the house with noise and chaos.

And she was gone, she ran out of the house, down the steps and out into the middle of the street. He rushed to the door just in time to see her dart across the street to the sound of screaming taxi horns and the yells of motorists as she ran without a care of being hit across the road and away. Her red hair being tossed carelessly by the wind, her shoelaces untied and scrambled around her feet and her shirt left carelessly untucked and wild in the breeze. She disappeared down the street into the thick throng of black umbrellas covering blank faces, swallowed by the throngs of people bustling to nowhere but always hungry for another life to drag into its clutches and never be released. Standing in the doorway, in the rain he stood with his heart in his hand and its slowing beat.

The shattered flower vase lay in pieces on the floor of the back room, the water running from its broken contents like blood. Its path only interrupted by the letter laying on the floor that slowly absorbed the liquid, blurring and spreading the ink of the words into an incoherent chaos never to be deciphered by another humans’ eyes. The last sentence to be swallowed by the blood water of the vase as the ink spread like a plague on its surface: terminal cancer, 4 months to live. He would never see the letter, and its damning words as he walked numbly back into the empty house devoid of life and love. He fell to his knees on the sea of comforters, gathering them into his arms to fill the hole in his heart, curling into a ball in the sea of white, he was left alone with no explanation just the devastating hole in his chest and the rain drifting through the open window and door, and the smell of petrichor.

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Bootjack or Bust: Day One- Gila Bend

Tuesday, June 19th, 2012

Today my mom and I left for our third adventure across the USA in our car moving towards (albiet on a somewhat random and very indirect course) our final stop in Upper Michigan, Bootjack where we will spend the summer. This years course is a very different one than in our past. We have really out done ourselves this time. We will be heading out from Santa Cruz on a nearly two week excursion across the very bottom of the US all the way until New Orleans and then heading almost directly up, through lower Michigan, to our final destination.

That being said this is either going to be the best trip ever… or the longest one.

3am wake up- out of the driveway by 4am, we like to start early and end late. Sunrise to sunset everyday. As we made our way through Gilroy at 5am, the smell of garlic was thick around us. As gross as it sounds somehow even then, before we had eaten breakfast, or let alone woken up yet, the smell of garlic was mouth watering. What can I say, I am a Gilroy girl. Anyway, besides trying to take pictures of barns in the dark and relentlessly googling questions that we had always wondered but never had time to ask but now have all the time in the world to wonder about, we didn’t do much in the morning. By the afternoon when we had left behind the traffic and smog of Los Angeles, my mother had a request, a single request: to go see the dinasaur park near Palm Springs. So of course, we did because road tripping without odd and unrelated stops every so often is rather boring. So the dinosaurs, a gigantic, plastic T-Rex, and a hollow Brontesauras that you could climb in, where our first real stop on our adventure; they were fantastic in the best, most childish way.

After that brief but joyous stop we headed down towards the very bottom of the state via a road that went along a little known (at least to me) lake called the Salton Sea which is actually the biggest lake in California. It is also saltier than the Pacific Ocean, similar to the Great Salt Lake but not that salty, Salton Sea is an odd and somewhat mysterious place. We past it and decided on a whim to drive into a tiny little RV town called Salton Sea Beach. This little detour was very worth while.

This odd sign was just the beginning to this strange detour that actually wound up being rather creepy and eerie. Driving slowly down this sole road lined with trailer homes that were either being lived in with no present sign of life, abandoned in a state of hollow dishevelment, or burned. There was no one around. At the end of the road was a turn into a section of only abandoned and burned down trailers that was extremely creepy. It felt like if we left the car, people would slowly begin to emerge all around us, all waiting to attack. I am not paranoid, it was really kind of scary. Only when another fellow tourist (possible lost) drove up hesitantly obviously feeling the same way did we get the courage up to get out of the car.

First thing I noticed upon getting out of the car:

  1. It was 111 degrees out and I was dying of heat
then began a slew of other realizations:
  • it smelled of death and decay in a horribly fetid way
  • there was no sand just a mixture of dried, dead coral, and bones from fish that had been left to wither, dry and die in the desert sun.

Needless to say, I was horribly intrigued by this place and wandered around taking pictures of this mysteriously eerie place. There was furniture ripped and worn on the beach and extremely large tires lodged in the ground. It was the oddest scene I had seen in a while.

The furniture strewn on the beach obviously had been stripped from the graffitied and burned buildings behind us that seemed to lurk like ghosts just beyond what the sign had called a “marina”.

Other odd and baffling things like this boat where strewn about. This faded pink motorboat which was buried halfway in sand amidst a palm tree grove seemed to sum up the atmosphere of this place rather well.

Regardless of the eerie feelings, paranoia, and other shiver inducing things we found in this odd place, it was beautiful in an eccentric sort of way. The blue water nestled below the jagged mountains in the back ground as pelicans and great blue herons flew around, all made up a very pretty scene.

Leaving behind the sea we continued all the way to the bottom of the state as far as you can go before hitting Mexico and then turned for the beginnings of our eastward journey. We saw two interesting things: Sand Dunes, and the Center of the World.

Odd, I know, I didn’t really get it at first and I still don’t really understand. So apparently this town, if you can call it that, with a population of four called Felicity, is the certified center of the world. A man, one of the four residents, is a writer who made up  a children’s story about a dragon who lives under the center of the world or something which is Felciity. And somehow, he convinced several nations including China and France to help him certify Felicity as the Center of the World. And they did.

This pyramid marks the center of the world… and I was there.

We also made a pit stop in the newly booming town of Yuma as we crossed over into Arizona. Right on the Colorado river this town, featured in the movie 3:10 to Yuma, is a historic gold mine, not literally but figurateivly :)

With the old prison yard and railroad systems, Yuma was once a huge crossing where prisoners where sent. It was seen as Hell. The cells looked like it too, six men to a room and just the length of a single cot and the width of maybe three, seems like Hell to me. It was great poking around this old city and seeing the historic areas and crumbling adobe facades of century old, or older buildings.

Our final stop before settling in was a little rest stop called Dateland. Not for dating but the fruit dates!! I had never actually eaten a date before but I love stops like this that are just weird and fun. This place is world famous for its date shakes. Yes… smoothies made from dates. So I went from never having eaten a date to being a date veteran in a few minutes. It was so much fun and surprisingly good! It had a nice cinnamon like flavor and was delicious. A fun must do :)

Our last stop today is a special little spot called Gila Bend. This little hell hole is notoriously the hottest city in the US, it is so proud of this title it often likes to inflate its temperatures just to maintain its title. It is supposed to be near 120 degrees tomorrow. Yippee for me! We are staying in the Space Age Lodge… which has a space ship on top of it, no joke. Oh and a train that runs right outside our window every hour… also no joke. LOVE IT!

Sarcasm doesn’t read well on the internet. But another 4am start tomorrow as we continue on ward towards Las Cruces New Mexico to see some of my lovely relatives!

 

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Deliver

Thursday, May 24th, 2012

The post of the mailbox shook, reverberating the metal mailbox with a steady but anxious beat. Like a drum struck with hesitant but impatient strokes of a hand not quite large enough to have a melody or harmony of its own, the mailbox sang its steady tune. The hand struck the mailbox post absentmindedly, not even aware of the affect that enabled the mailbox to sing. Hanging listless and open the small hand swung like a pendulum back forward and down again, encountering the slowly splintering wood that was breaking apart under the stress that had not yet cracked the young boy. The pendulum of this grandfather clock belonged to a young boy and each swing of his short but sinewy arm kept the beat of a clock counting out the seconds, then minutes, and eventually hours of the day with all the consistency of the human heart and its resounding drumbeat.

The mailbox faced forward but the boy faced the side, looking down the long stretching road all the way until it terminated at a bend. Even as the wind blew around him shaking the trees and causing the little red upright flag to hum gently into his ear, the little boy stood upright with all the attentiveness of a sentry on duty, watching the road that remained unchanged save for the few leaves which had been torn from their branches and cast into the sea of asphalt. Every once and a while his eyes would briefly wander to follow the leaves as they tumbled without grace or passion across the road, desperately trying to grab onto a crack in the road so as not to be blown away. At the slightest noise he would snap his attention back to the bend in the road, righting himself and mentally berating himself for his lack of discipline. But still, every so often, his eyes would wander. Blue and determined they focused on the end of the road, waiting. The only thing in his way was himself. His sandy yellow hair kept being blown into his face by a playful gust of wind, blocking his perfect view. But he was in no mood to play, he was on duty. So he would purse his lips with displeasure just as he had watched his mother do time and time again and with a huff of breath blew the strands of hair from his eyes, enabling him to return to his watch. But still the wind tousled his hair like an affectionate hand being run through his light shaggy hair. A small smile cracked his reserved exterior as he felt the wind’s fingers run through and play with his hair-

The smile was torn from his face with a sudden and sharp pinch from the abused wooden mailbox post. With a loud yelp of pain the little boy hunched over slightly to shelter his hand and observed his battle wound with pouting lips. The little splinter sticking out from the side of his hand stung with the pain of a knife from the vindictive mailbox post. With shaky but practiced fingers the little boy used his fingernails to carefully remove the splinter leaving only a small angry red dot of blood behind. Sucking on the side of his hand to get rid of the sting and the blood, the boy eyed the mailbox post with malice burning in his hurt eyes. Pricked with pain he felt his anger build in his chest like a bad cough. Suddenly he lashed out and kicked the post. The metal mailbox let out a shriek but otherwise remained unmoved. The pain built in him until his eyes burned and brimmed with tears. Pain more than a splinter could supply. With all the might in his small frame he kicked the post again, and again, and again until the splintered wood creaked and groaned. The upright red flag shook and quaked under the pent up pain of the little boy. Crying out in his rage he gave a final desperate kick to the mailbox post, unearthing it from its sentry spot sending it crashing to the ground in one violent movement. The metal mailbox crashed to the ground, unhinging its jaw on an unfriendly rock where it had fallen, spilling its contents onto the street: one lonely letter.

Blinking back his sudden outburst of rage, the little boy surveyed the damage he had done. The casualty of war lay on the ground before him, slain by his own hands and feet. Seeing the letter lying there he felt a regret and a guilt burn inside of him that was greater than any anger could have been. The tears that had come to his eyes out of anger, now spilled out of regret. He flung himself to the concrete ground trying to grab the letter as the wind picked it up and blew it farther away. “No please, I’m sorry,” he screamed as he chased it down the street. The wind tore the letter across the jagged road tearing it until it caught desperately in a crack in the road. The little boy leapt and grabbed the letter in his small fists, letting out a triumphant laugh as he held it in his hands. Scratched from the road and bleeding, he slowly returned to the fallen mailbox. Tucking the crumpled and slightly torn letter into his pocket he tenderly picked up the mailbox returning it to its rightful place. The only noticeable sign of the battle was a slight tilt left behind by an act of rage that could not be fixed entirely. He worked carefully and tenderly to place the hinge of the mailbox door back into its place and rub off the dirt from its shiny metal surface which the ground had tainted. When it looked almost right he took out the letter from his pocket, simply addressed with one word, smoothed out as many wrinkles as he could, and gently placed it back into its sheltered cove inside the mailbox’s mouth. Then he turned with tracks of tears running down his dirt smudged face to face the bend in the road which was now blocked by a square white van.

The old mail truck pulled up to house number 187 as it did every single day, as it had always done and would always do. In front of the sole house out in the deserted wooded area that had slowly but surely lost its population as the military base had moved out to another location, stood the little boy who had stood there now for everyday of the last year and a half. Charlie let out a sigh, put the truck into park and slowly got out of the truck to look down at the little boy. Charlie let out a sigh as he stood over the little boy who had normally been so patient and put together but now stood before him a scuffed up mess. His jeans where ripped, his white shirt stained with dirt and possibly a little blood, and his sandy head of hair sat as a disheveled mess on his head. The little boy didn’t say anything but smiled a little as he sniffled and wiped the tears from his face. He looked up at Charlie with a newborn excitement, which was actually never new, it had been that same look for the last year and a half as the little boy did as he always did. He rushed to the mailbox, opened its bruised jaw, which squeaked now as he pried it open, removed the letter, and reverently handed it to the mailman.

Charlie heaved another sigh, his cheeks filling with air like sails in the wind, he removed his hat and slowly rubbed his quickly thinning hair as he watched the little boy hold up the letter with a big smile across his tear stained face. Kneeling down he placed a large calloused hand on the boys shoulder. It lay there heavy and solid, it made the little boy frown under its weight.

“You know kid, it’s been over a year and a half now-“

“578.300148 days”

“… Yeah. I know that is hard to hear, but little man, he’s gone.”

The little boy slowly looked away, back down the road that he had watched for so long. The smile slipped from his cheeks, which were still plump with innocence and eyes that still burned to believe.

“I know. Just one last time.”

The little boy held out the letter again this time not with the usual smile but a smile filled with pain and hope. Charlie looked with pity in his heart at the young boy, forced a smile on his face, and took the crumpled letter from the boy. They didn’t exchange another word, just looked into each other’s eyes knowing that that letter would never be received, but both hoping that it would be. Charlie laid a hand on the boy’s head and ruffled his hair. He nodded towards the little boy’s home and turned back to his mail truck, which bent and swayed as he stepped back inside and started the it with a great protest of sound. The little boy smiled, waved, and turned away. He ran down the gravel path that cut through the dark woods where just beyond sight, a woman stood on a porch with her thin arms wrapped around a column as she stood just as silent, just as determined, watching the path as she did everyday for her little boy to come home. As soon as she heard him coming home she would wipe the tears from her face and go about the house as if she had not abandoned everything to wait for her son. AS if she had not been waiting every minute of every day just as her son down at the edge of the road.

Charlie shook his head as the truck lurched back into motion down the long lonely road. He placed the letter on the seat next to him in a pile of others, all neat and crisp except the newest addition which was crumpled and torn. Five hundred and seventy nine letters sat on the old passenger seat cushion entitled with only one word; Dad.

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Annular Eclipse

Sunday, May 20th, 2012

This evening around 6:30 there was a rare annular eclipse of the Sun which was visible in Northern California. According to Professor Marcy at UC Berkeley an annular eclipse is “when the Sun, Moon, and Earth are lined up, but the Moon is farther than average from Earth, so it looks a bit too small to fully cover the Sun. Thus, if you are at one of the right places, the Sun will form a ring, or annulus, around the Moon. It’s a special, fun form of a partial solar eclipse.”

So naturally, living in Northern California, I ran outside with my camera and some filters to use that would allow my camera to capture this astronomical event. Sadly I only caught the tail end of it but the results where still intriguing. The odd colors of the photos are not naturally emitted colors from the sun but simply the colors of the filters I used, disappointing I know.

Oh and to those wondering: no I did not look right at the eclipse. I switched the view finder on my camera to the screen and then just held up the camera and took these shots.

The filter also caused some interesting bokken like effects causing multiple images of the eclipse to be displayed.

I want to give another thanks to Professor Marcy for the heads up about this great event and the great information about it as well.

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