Posts tagged Dear diary

brb, finals.

This is literally one week of me being ill. I went to the doctor a week ago today, got antibiotics, went to shoot a conference as per prior commitment, got worse, and went straight to the ER after said conference. Two days of bed rest later and I’m still too nauseous and lightheaded to leave my house. The cons of being sick (namely being lonely, feeling awful, getting behind on work, and not shooting pictures) are obvious, but maybe there are some pros:

- Wearing leggings and no bra all day (I wake up and am already dressed for my sick day!)

- Watching an entire season and a half of Arrested Development (29 episodes. No words)

- When friends come and lay in bed with me (guys, I’m literally free whenever! No more pesky schedule to work around)

- Feeling justified eating entire meals of noodles and butter (Comfort food is a real need)

- Weight loss (only slightly countered by previous point)

Now accepting company and donations of food, but not your pity!

Shooting the early morning campus radio DJ means I have to be there early too….ohh….right. 

My viewfinder was cloudy and I couldn’t figure out the technical difficulty (photojournalism office hours, come soon!), but I tried to make up for the necessary automatic focus by playing with my external flash. I’m now in love. 

All I want to do is special topic documentary photography and journalism by immersing myself in communities at a relevant political/cultural/environmental crux. 

Where my grants at?

**Also where is my sense of realism? Lost, y’all. 

What does it mean if my photographic work captures small, intimate moments but my writing tackles sweeping, stormy themes? Opposites attract. 

Must write paper. Must not write prose. Must write paper. Must not write prose.

Paper, not prose!

I’ve been terrible at posting of late because I have been too busy living. Living in a lazy, spontaneous, naive, curious and youthful kind of way. The way when you meet new people and have deep conversations and look quizzically into one another’s eyes and drink too much and eat too much but never get sick because you’re staying up far too late. And I admit, I’ve been doing the bare minimum for my responsibilities and I feel terrible about that but I just had a really refreshing weekend away and now feel so much more ready and willing to approach everything. 

This seems cryptic. But it’s not. I’m sitting at my kitchen table at 10:25 p.m. waxing poetic about political science on a paper and waxing poetic about my summer of dreamy escapes in my head.  

I’m going to try to be better at living happily and responsibly from here on out and reflecting on all of it better here because I love this portal of private/public think space and how my thoughts and experiences of the past few years are etched here in a fleeting/permanent way. 

Okay, I’ll wax on in my Word document now… 

With my ears submerged, the quiet is deafening. My back is arched and I am floating in the Mediterranean, transfixed by the stars and the nearly full moon and the stillness. The stillness is stirring within me. 

Moments ago I was on a dark beach surrounded by people and words and wine until I looked at the girl next to me and we stripped down to our underthings, running screaming and smiling into the sea as its tides calmly lapped the shore. Others joined. I dove under and pushed hard off the sandy bottom to propel myself back up, gasping for air. Life felt palpable. My head felt clear.

“Where are you going?” a boy from the UK via Botswana asked me, “To the boats?”

I glanced to the horizon and the glowing gold lights of cruise ships a mile ahead of where I tread. 

“I’m going to the boats!” I screamed in the the black of the night before diving again under the black of the sea. I didn’t mean it, but I think I scared him.  

I leaned back and submerged my ears to escape further small talk, but I immediately fell into myself. Hard. The stillness and illumination of the sky took my breath away and I felt so small, cradled by waves. Alone, exposed, shaken: I lay confronted with myself and myself alone for the first time in a long time.

I don’t know myself or what I want. I don’t know what or who I love. I turn twenty-one tonight and I don’t know when I’ll be confident in my directions and decisions-for now that ideal seems light years beyond the ships in the water. 

One last deep breath and I pull myself back up. One last deep breath and I take everything left off, holding my bra and panties above my head in the water. Others do the same. We’re laughing.

My heart is yearning desperately for something, but how can I find it if I don’t know what it is?  

I’m really proud because I just finished my final photo project for my photojournalism class in Berlin early so that I have all tonight and tomorrow to enjoy the city and shoot whatever I want. Then Thursday morning it’s on to Paris. 

This is ridiculously unreal to me.  

Superficial vs. real reasons I love Berlin:

Superficial: 

• They serve mayo on fries. If this grosses you out, you’re not invited to come to this city OR be my friend. 
• Berlin is a mecca for people like me with septum piercings. Never seen so many in one place (Sorry mom).
• I love punks. And skateboarding punks. Anyone who knew me in middle school knows this point can end just at that. 

Real:

• The public transit system here is amazing and encompasses every corner of the city. I can even navigate it. Usually. 
• The history. It’s fascinating to me to be in a region that has experienced all extremes of extremism- from fascism to communism and every system in between. 
• The incredible dual personalities of rebellion and community that permeate the city. The public spaces are as covered in modern sculpture and graffiti as lounging families and running children. 

Anyone want to go in on an apartment here? 

They’re always playing our song on the radio because every single one reminds me of you. 

Large park merry-go-round. German beer and wine. Truth or truth. Laughing. Spinning. Slipping. Fries. Last night. 

Last night began with my group at an unmarked, underground, one table ping-pong bar where, while serving (at this place everyone runs around the table hitting the ball to determine who will play one another) I spotted three people from my high school across the table from me. Here. In Berlin.

After laughing and playing and meeting people for a few hours, one German guy I met offered to take us with him and his friend to a dance club. Together they herded us and some really fun tag-alongs (I don’t know where they came from) including a French guy and some Canadians like geese through the streets of Berlin. On our way we played “If I were you,” which equates to a game of repeated dares where you turn to someone and say “If I were you I would do ____.” It was pretty hysterical. 

At the club we danced to techno polka music (it’s simultaneously as absurd and more fun than it sounds) with more conversation and laughter before walking the way back at 3 a.m. 

New friends and incredible, at times ludicrous, fun in Berlin. 

I feel like I’m about to puke. 

It’s a combination of anxiety, nerves and nausea from an antibiotic I’m taking. I leave tomorrow for Berlin and will be there for two weeks on a photojournalism study abroad and then two more weeks of travel which will include Paris, Cannes, Florence and Zurich before I get back to Berlin for my return flight to The States. 

I’ve traveled back and forth between the U.S. coasts plenty of times- I even drove across the country this one time (okay, so I mostly co-piloted, but I was damn good at it!). I spent a month in Cambodia and I have the medical records to prove it. So why am I shaking in my boots at this? 

I don’t know. I wish I did. As I like to say (especially when under the influence of exhaustion or anything else) I’m a strong, independent woman, but right now the mantra I’m repeating to myself is “You are okay” (said in the voice of a dear friend who repeated it to me today until I think he was blue in the face). I have some real first-world problems, don’t I? Don’t worry, I hate myself just as much as you do for this.

So please, send me positive prayers, thoughts, vibes (whatever you feel) and I’ll send you updates here. Expect musings and photos, I’ll post as many as I can as often as I can. Shouldn’t be hard. I heard Europe has way better internet than Southeast Asia.  

Now excuse me as I go breathe deeply into a paper bag.