♫ When I Listen To...

                                                                              David Gray

I am in the passenger seat of Tookie, also known as my friend Janet's Hyundai Tucson.  Janet is driving, the windows are down and there is a perfect breeze, one of those kinds that makes you feel like a teenager again, like at any moment you are going to put your hand out there in the wind and let it ride the waves.  Janet knows how to drive with a confidence that I always lacked; the smaller roads, the blind curves mixed with the rolling hills never so much as cause a flinch or one moment of hesitation.  Of course Tookie is American, so I being in the passenger seat am the one that could be clipped by any small oncoming British car driving 100 mph around the bend.  As I flinch at another "close call", I look at Janet who has a smile that is sunshine, her smile is the biggest of southern welcomes; and when I am in her presence I know that I am in the presence of a person with the most gentlest of spirits and this always puts me at ease.

Nuzzled up in the backseat directly behind Janet is Brandi.  Brandi's hair shines in the late day sun, she closes her eyes when the breeze blows in her face, sweeping her long hair behind her shoulders.  I hope that she is taking it all in; I hope she is getting it, I hope she is getting me.

"Babylon" comes on our adventure mix as Janet takes another bend.  I can't help but think of Pretty Woman and the line, "corners like it's on rails."  That's how Janet drives.

♫ Friday night I'm going nowhere, all the lights are changing green to red.

Around the bend we come to an expansive field of green, I want to say that it was almost like a cabbage patch; whether it was or not, I'm not sure.  Almost as if on cue, Brandi enthusiastically says, "Pull over!"  She slides across the backseat, opens her door, and crosses both lanes of what for a moment is an empty English motorway; and in a moment that I will never forget, she starts spinning around in this field, her arms open wide!

♫ Let go of your heart, Let go of your head... And feel it now

In my memory, I always see her twirling in that garden in slow motion.  She gets it!  As the song is winding down, my beautiful English sun is getting closer to setting, and our trip is one more bittersweet moment towards the end; Brandi crosses the street once more, slides back along the backseat, buckles her seatbelt.  Janet puts the car in drive, checks her mirrors, turns on her blinker and gets back on the road.

And David Gray sings on.

Romance

This Thanksgiving week I was lucky enough to get to meet up for dinner and a movie with one of my oldest friends that lives out of town but was home for the holiday.

Here we are:  Me and Miss Eden (again, this is just one of my favorite pics of us--- it wasn't from this weekend though)

We were talking about the movie Brave and I stated that I liked the direction Disney was going in with their female characters.  Eden told me that she missed the classic Disney characters.  I quickly went on a rant about what was Disney teaching little girls back then... that your life is miserable and that you are doomed until your Prince Charming comes along and then at last all is perfect and right with the world?

Eden being the eternal romantic that she is quickly called my rant out for what it was:  "Karstee, you sound so jaded right now!"

We had a laugh and then we left it at that.

The next night I was cozying up in bed reading Les Miserables when I came upon this little jem:

"The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in.  Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other.  Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only.  The rest is the rest, and comes afterwards."

I love this... and this is how I know that I am not as jaded as I sometimes come across.  Just as I made the argument last February with an old co-worker about what constitutes romance, I believe I am a student of the most old fashioned kind of romance, but with a modern idea of self.  You will never find me looking for love on a dating website, I will never think that a husband helping with the dishes is romantic (isn't that just common courtesy?); but I also don't think that a man comes along and everything is complete and you drive off into the sunset with birds chirping happily up in their branches and the sun setting on the previous life that you leave behind just because you've found your guy!

I do however believe in romance.  I also believe in myself.  I believe that I will find a man that complements me not completes me.

The point of this post is just to simply serve as a reminder:  You are looking for something rare, and those things take time and work!  In the meanwhile, keep believing in and cultivating your romantic side, tone down the jaded cynicism, but keep a healthy dose of realism!

Grateful

                                                    ♫ "You should listen to your heart
                                                      It's going to tell you what you need
                                                     Take care of yourself
                                                    And don't you worry about me" ♪

About a month ago I got to meet one of my favorite singer-songwriters: Tristan Prettyman!  I had left a comment on one of her pictures on instagram, welcoming her to Denver and saying that I wished I could be at her show but only had enough money budgeted for her album.  Lo and behold, she responded within minutes telling me she'd put me on her guest list.  It was amazing, and her performance was great!  I got to meet her after the show and I was so happy!

 

Sit back, because I am about to tell you why I am so starstruck by this amazing person! 

The first time that I saw Tristan Prettyman perform was in 2008, my dear friend Andrea asked if I wanted to venture out to Boulder to see Tristan's show.  I had seen Tristan's name on iTunes but had never listened to any of her music before that night.  She was amazing live!  I fell in love with her music and oddly enough her whole vibe!  The lyrics, the crowd interaction, the way the people in the crowd danced (which I started calling hippie dancing).  It was magical.

That night after the show my friend and I were driving back home from Boulder and it was snowing a blizzard!  David called while we were driving and it was a short conversation since I was driving and it was snowing, I didn't know it at the time but it was one of the very last conversations I would have with him.  I didn't know that my whole world was about to flip turn upside down and I didn't know that the friend sitting next to me in the passenger seat (that I had just barely reconnected with) was going to be one of my rocks over the next few years.

** Here's a pic of us (doesn't have anything to do with anything in this post, other than it is just my favorite pic of us, it's blurry, but I still love it!):

I also, didn't know that Tristan Prettyman was going to be a rock of a different kind.  Listening to her music was therapeutic, yes there was a song that I used in an indulgent way that made me dwell on things (♪ And if this sadness won't ever leave, I guess I'll build it a home so it has a nice place to stay), but at the time that was what I needed.  And when I moved into a different phase of grieving or letting go or fooled myself with inappropriate crushes (♪ I've seen things from a different view, and I realized all the things I already knew-- your not for me, you know I don't think that you'll ever be good for me, or ♫ Well I just want to laugh my way through life, and ♪ Gonna let it all roll right past me cause when I'm here I'm always happy), I'd find a new song of hers that spoke to me in that phase!

With her latest album, I feel like I have been invested in her own journey.  Through her blog and through her instagram she shares so much of her story and how she got to the lyrics that manifested themselves into an album!

Tristan is the walking embodiment of how good "letting go" looks!  Letting go of the things that have been done to us, the wrongs that people commit against us, and all the negative stuff that can build up.  She channels it into writing, into giving, into yoga, and who knows what else?

I know that I have been processing stuff that went down in 2008 for what seems like FOREVER!  If it feels like that to you guys, my 9 readers, trust me it feels double that to my own self.  Nothing is more frustrating than holding yourself to other people's timelines,  or to feel like you are never making progress, or to feel like this one thing is going to destroy you if you can not figure out how to let go of it,  or to finally feel like you are making progress only to have a setback out of the blue.  Lately though, I feel like I finally get it.  That same friend that I went to Tristan's show with in 2008 recently met up with me for a coffee, she told me something along the lines of... "You are never going to be able to bury it, it's always going to resurface in one way or another so quit trying to bury it... what happened is a part of you."

So when Tristan asks, ♫ "If you could go anywhere, what would you see?  Take a step in any direction... just make believe!" I can see where I want to go, and I know it's within reach, and I know that along the journey I will have a good soundtrack and really good company!

Gardening

"such gardens are not made, by singing: 'Oh, how beautiful!' and sitting in the shade"- Rudyard Kipling

Ever since I moved to Boulder County over a year ago, I haven't been able to make it down to my church in Aurora that often, however, thanks to technology I haven't missed a beat!  I am able to download the podcasts of the sermons and listen to them on my phone sometime throughout the week.  Well, there was a sermon a few weeks ago that has been resonating ever since I heard it.  The sermon was based around the scripture that says, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."  Special emphasis was placed on the word kept, by the end of the sermon the Pastor was talking about the state of our souls and how we "keep" them.  He compared it to a garden and asked us to ask ourselves--- What season of gardening is your soul in?  Is it harvest season?  Is it planting season?  Are you in full bloom???  He asked us to determine what season we were in and then to really work on honoring that season.

On a subconscious level I have been pondering this question ever since he posed it.  And yesterday I found my answer!  Yesterday was one of those great Fall days, where the temperature is just right!  I had decided to spend this weekend down in Aurora for many reasons, but Saturday was just kind of a blank slate... I didn't really know what the day was going to bring.  What it brought was.... gardening!!!!  My mom had to be outside staining her fence all day, and I knew that was a task that I would grow impatient with so I thought... How can I help my mom out?  I looked around and noticed that a lot of the plants that had flowered had now dried up and needed to be cut back.  The tall wheat grass plants had long reached the highest that they would see for the year and were now drooping over covering pumpkin vines and other assorted plants.  I noticed that her garden had zucchini and tomatoes that were ripe and could be picked.  I noticed that my very own rhubarb plant had grown like wild and had been left unattended and many of the heavy leaves were now weighing the plant down.  I thought, what a great chance to help my mom out and to get to spend some time outdoors with her and to get my hands dirty with the "brown moist earth" as Sal Paradise once called it.

As I picked the veggies out of the garden... I thought... am I in a producing, "harvesty" season?  No....
As I enjoyed the plants that still were blooming... I thought... I'm definitely not in a blooming phase!
Am I in a planting phase?  No.  What I need is there somewhere.... it has already been planted.
But as I sat there and I cut back the plants that have already turned brown and I thought of how great they had been when in bloom and how they would be again next year... I thought this is EXACTLY what season I'm in!!!  I'm in PRUNING season!  Now, the next step is to honor that season!

So... since I was down in Aurora I thought, this has been such a great weekend so to top it off before the Broncos come on, I'm going to go to church Sunday morning!  So I did, and again the topic couldn't have been better because it was about the sower parable.  Needless to say we talked about seeds and soil.  This parable talks about a farmer that throws down many seeds, some get eaten by birds, some are on such dry soil that when the plant grows it quickly withers because the roots weren't able to take hold, some seeds turn into plants that get smothered because they are planted in a garden of thorns, and then some plants are in soil that allows them to flourish and to produce many times over.  Unfortunately in the past month or so I haven't been feeling like I was in the previous months where I felt I was on the cusp of major growth.  This weekend though has given me hope that I can identify the thorns in my garden, that I can cut back some of the "dead" leaves, and that I can honor my pruning season so that next year my garden can bloom & produce a harvest!

Acclamation & Motivation

I've been in my new place for 3 weeks today, it's cozy and I love it, even the imperfections.  There are windows that if I'm home then they are open- letting the sunlight and fresh air in, and then there are some windows that I've covered in curtains.  When I look out the open windows all I can see are trees, prompting the others in the complex to label my apartment "the treehouse", and even further upon seeing my style and taste calling it, "la treehouse" or as a French co-worker of mine clarified, "la cabane dans les arbres".  There is no TV, and there are a lot of books!  Not to say that when my friend that lives below me isn't home I'm not hopping on the internet to catch up on some show or another.  The kitchen still hasn't seen me cook a serious meal, and the bath tub still feels like someone else's (so needless to say, there have been no book/wine/jazz nights in the tub), the bathroom still hasn't seen me put on a full face of make up or actually do something to my hair besides the wash, scrunch, and go!

What I'm saying is that even though I'm in a new place and so much has changed- in some ways nothing really has.  I feel like a vagabond with each foot in a different world.  I guess that in some ways I'm still the girl that wants a dark bedroom, I'm also not ready to give up TV 100%, and I still haven't learned how to cook a proper meal for one.  On the other "foot" I'm meeting people that I never would have met before, I'm pushing myself on some of my OCD boundaries that I never really knew had such a strong hold on me.

While I'm extremely happy with the progress I've been making I felt like I was having a bit of a setback at first--- It probably didn't help matters that I moved out on my own for the very first time in my life about the same time that I was approaching my divorce/wedding anniversary.  When this day comes along I always analyze and criticize myself for where I am in life, and this year was no different.  So... this has me thinking- what can I do differently this year so that next year come August I don't even think about the fact that however many years ago I got married, or however many years ago I got divorced?

There is something that I realize I must master in order to ever move on and let go (and by this I don't mean from the actual person I was once married to, I mean from the disappointments and beliefs that I let myself turn into bigger issues than they ever should have been).

                                       I have got to learn to love myself and treat my body better than I do.

If I walk around believing that no man will ever love me again and that I'm not worth it because I have bad ovaries, then that is exactly what is going to happen.  Or worse... I'll find an equally sad individual to chip away at time together with and never actually feel what it's like to live boldly and passionately.  I have been walking around in a shell for 4 years, but really even longer than that and it is absolutely time to do something about it.

Pause... I NEED to go for a jog/walk.

I kid you not, this just happened.  I put on my jogging shorts and my nice running shoes that my brother bought me, and of course a pair of adidas knee socks (in my thinner days I loved to wear knee socks and in some ways my love affair with knee socks has never went away-  while my calves are double the size they once were when I slip a pair of knee socks on I instantly feel like an athlete).  Anyway, so I decided to go the route that a friend of mine mapped out for me (1 mile), the instant I started to jog I noticed 3 teenagers approaching me on the same side of the street that I was.  As we got closer and closer I could see that they looked like they could have just jumped out of Rolling Stone magazine circa the Seattle grunge era.  My mind was racing-- Should I stop jogging?  Cross the street?  Are they going to make fun of me shattering any trace of confidence that I might have remaining???  Shoot! My shorts are riding up?  What to do?  I decided to keep jogging and jog right past them with a half smile so as to let them know- I'm fragile, I'm nice, and I'm just trying to fit in this world just like you.  The first two didn't even make eye contact and the third one smiled back, lifted his fist in the air, and said genuinely, "keep up the good work".  Sigh!!!!  It gave me the motivation to run twice as far as I did last time before my lungs were crying for me to stop and my shins thought they might explode!  Thank you kid!!!

August 29th

you gave me...

daisies at a metro stop in paris
coffee and books on foggy sunday mornings
bare feet dancing on a stone tiled kitchen floor
silly nicknames--
     such as "blueberry muffin" and "my lady"
the most beautiful letdown of pro-creating endeavors
a perfect panino after a long bus ride to taormina
your arm as we perused the rainy moss covered streets of england
mornings of being awakened by--
      scratchy beard nudges, the smell of your cologne, and whispers of "you're my favorite person"

you gave me a proposal of marriage on historical steps beneath the words "enshrined forever"
hmm

Who's That Girl???

Ok ok... so I'm still not the greatest photographer in the world... but can I just say I was having a wee bit of an excited kind of anxiety attack!!!  I just got to round out what I've been calling my Clinton Administration Trifecta!!!  (Meaning I have now gotten books signed by President Clinton, Vice President Gore, and now Madam Secretary Albright... I freakin' rule!)  Ok... I'm a bit of a nerd, but can I just say.... WOW!!!!

Growing up there were 3 women that I always paid attention to (before Hillary that is) and they were Margaret Thatcher, Sandra Day O'Connor, and Madeleine Albright!  As a student of history from a very young age and an enthusiast of politics, I knew that these women were women that broke the mold.  But hearing this eloquent, informed, and hilariously charming woman speak in person is a memory I will always cherish.  The accomplishments this woman has achieved really helps give my life a little perspective:  Why do I get so stressed out and doubt myself so much in my role as an assistant???  For Pete's sake, I'm a competent girl, and it's not like I'm sitting down at a table with a bunch of men that are committing genocide and trying to negotiate with them!  It's time I start owning up to the fact that I am capable and that I am smart and that if I don't believe I can do it, then no one else will either!

Madeleine was discussing her book Prague Winter, she spent a lot of time talking about what it was like to come to Denver as a refugee when she was a small girl and about her time growing up in Colorado.  She talked about her father and how he worked for the University of Denver and how he founded the Graduate School of International Studies at DU.  She also talked about how she always loved History and Political Science, and about some of her studies throughout her PhD program.  She currently teaches International Relations courses at Georgetown University.  One thing I found really interesting are her opinions on religion and how it is so important when it comes to foreign policy.

Listening to her talk I felt jazzed!  I work in International Education, I love History, this stuff is right up my alley!  I think it is time to get serious and really figure out what is the next degree that I want to try for.  I gave a half hearted attempt at a Master's in History last year and after some advising, I can see that if I want a career in higher education, it's not necessarily the best route...although it is has always been a dream of mine.  However, lately I've been intrigued with International Relations just because of my own background and because of my new position at work.  Perhaps it is time to do some research!

Thank you Madeleine for making it the "norm" that women hold the Secretary of State position, and thank you for continuing to inspire girls everywhere from their youthful years into their adult careers!  I am awake!!!