Prompts 3, 4, 5

Reverb10 #3-5 after the jump...

One Word, Writing

Reverb10 #1-2 after the jump...

REVERB10

I decided last night that I was going to pledge to participate in REVERB10, but I'm starting a few days after everyone else. It's day 7, so I think I'm going to plan to write two prompts a day until I'm caught up. Starting today.

Return, Regret, Reacclimation...

I got back from my trip to San Diego to see my boyfriend the morning before last. I was gone since the weekend before Thanksgiving, which is why I haven't posted in a while (although, I guess that is not an acceptable excuse since I had my computer out there and access to internet. I was a bit distracted spending time with him though, since we can't see each other much until I move out there).

It's so weird being back. Everyone here kept telling me before I left for my trip that I had to come back, because I'm obviously not moving YET -- still wrapping things up here first -- and I promised everyone "don't worry, I won't be staying out there, I'll be back in two weeks."   Here I am. Back, like I promised... Everyone thought I'd be the one trying to stay out there, I guess. I don't think they counted on the fact that it would be my boyfriend trying to get me to stay, and telling me we can make things work now and don't need to wait the extra month or two.

I had to be the logical one. It was more talking myself into leaving than it was talking him into me leaving, in a way. I already wanted to stay...and with him encouraging me to do so, it was really difficult to say I'd just come back here again to the other coast far FAR away for another few months without each other. But I'm back. Home, like I promised...

And I already regret it.

Photo Credit: LunaDawnImages

An Explanation

So I started re-reading Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer tonight (I originally read it when it was first released a few years back), and it occurred to me about halfway down the first page that in a way it looks like I could have stolen my blog name idea from Oskar. While this is not true, I do love him as a narrator and realized while re-reading that our ideas do in a way mirror each other.

Because of this, I thought I would quickly sum up the idea behind the title "The Heartbeat Symphony," since I know I haven't done it yet. If you don't care, skip this post. Then after I explain my idea behind it, I'll copy in Oskar's idea from Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.

10 Things

I've been tagged by Kai Lani to post ten things that I love (her post is here if you think my list is boring and want to check out one by someone else).

10.  Working on translations 

9. Really Good Concerts

8. (and on a related note) The Roar of a Crowd

7. Wide Open Spaces 

6. Photography 

5.  Travel

4. Baking

3.  Family

2.  The Ocean

1.  Sushi

Okay so there are my ten... I'm only going to tag a few people in return, not an entire ten. I choose... 

Midwest Mama

Spooktastical

and   Laugh out Loud

if anyone else feels like posting, go for it :)

*Side note: All of the pictures included in this post are ones that I took. If you want to use them somewhere else, feel free but please credit LunaDawnImages.

Flight

For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return. Leonardo da Vinci

I have a really strange deep love for flying that I don’t entirely understand. So many people I know are stressed out by traveling, and especially by flights in particular—most likely due to overbooked flights or rushing to catch a connection, or lost luggage, or so many other things that could go wrong.

Those are all valid reasons for disliking a mode of transportation, I suppose, but for me what makes it worth it is the time actually spent in the air. I came to this realization on my flights this spring while traveling to and from Cape Town, South Africa…three flights or a total of about 30 hours of flying and layover time each direction. Sure, some of the time in the airports rushing around trying to find my gate and make sure details were worked out and there were no problems with my carry-on, etc was slightly stressful, but once the plane got off of the ground and reached its cruising altitude, the time until beginning the descent is really some of the most incredible I’ve experienced. While in the air, you’re completely isolated from any of the worries on the ground. All that matters are that time, the people sharing the flight with you, and the air around you.

It is the best possible time for reflection and self-discovery.

photo from http://www.airliners.net/

Bursts of Colour Fill the Sky

You know that feeling that happens when things work out the way they are supposed to? When everything just feels absolutely right, and you know that it's obviously how life is supposed to be, so no matter what else comes your way you would never give up what you have? That has to be my favourite feeling in the entire world.

I've been feeling it a lot lately....concerning friends, love, work... it's wonderful. I know that some of it IS temporary for certain because I'm moving so soon, but for now I'm enjoying every moment. Everything is fitting together so nicely.

My best friend and I witnessed some truly beautiful
fireworks a few weeks ago at the beach.
Photo Credit: LunaDawnImages

That's [Not] Funny!!!!

How do we develop a sense of humour? Why is one thing funny to some people, but not to others...and how are others still seemingly devoid of any sense of humour at all?

The Months Pass Just Like Seconds...

I always wanted a happy ending... Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity. -Gilda Radner

The passing of time is such a crazy thing. Some days the minutes CRAWL along, and it seems as though you will never make it to closing time (or to when your date is scheduled, or dinner, or a vacation)...but other days, every time you glance at the clock it seems as though another hour has flown by and is gone forever.

It is so weird to think that it has been basically two months since my guy went to San Diego. The past 8 weeks or so have felt so slow for many individual moments, but now looking back at them it seems like they almost went too fast. I'm sure that there was more I could have experienced in the past two months than I did. I've been busy with work, with sorting things out around here, with so many other things...but at the same time, I haven't had as much time to interact with old friends as I would have liked. 

In a way, I feel like that about the entire past year. For nearly the entire past year, I've constantly been looking forward to something. That doesn't sound horrible, I know. It sounds awesome. Everyone needs something to look forward to, right? This would be true except that if you're constantly waiting for something exciting to happen (or lots of little things over the course of a year, in my case), you're also going to be constantly wishing away the moments in between. If you are traveling every two months or so, that weekend/week/two weeks every few months are going to be your focal point--the rest of the time between those will simply blur and speed past, and be lost forever. That's what I'm dealing with at the moment. I realized a few days ago that I simply can not believe that Oct 2009 was an entire year ago, and even though I've lived through every single minute--every single SECOND--of it, my year has been dizzyingly busy, so it is really hard to accept that an entire year has gone by. 

[un]Home-sick

Have you ever been homesick for somewhere you knew wasn't home? Wait, let me narrow that down a little bit more... not just somewhere you knew currently wasn't home, but that you knew would never be your home? I've been dealing with that a lot recently.

This past spring I traveled to South Africa and Namibia, and I connected with Namibia in a way that I never thought I would with any place. Seriously everything about that country was beautiful and perfect; the landscapes were all incredibly breathtaking, I fit in with everyone I met there, and it just felt like home in a way that Virginia never has. I've been to plenty of places in the United States, and South Africa was lovely, but Namibia was just different.

It has been strange because recently I keep finding myself longing to be back there--not to be with the people I know there, and not just from a simple wanderlust, but from some deeper need to be in that atmosphere...which is rough because I see no chance of me going back there any time in the next few years at least, and possibly not for ten or twenty years depending on how life goes...there are so many other places I want to see that I don't think I could justify trading a chance to see some place new for a location I've already been.

I'm fairly certain while I was there I found paradise.

Photos: Credit to LunaDawnImages

Mirror

Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives. -William  Dement 

Earlier tonight I was catching up on what's been going on with an old online friend (We've been talking since we were both 13, we're 20 now, that's longer than I've known a lot of my friends offline) by reading her livejournal posts from the past year--I haven't kept up with them much the past year because of being super busy, etc, and we have only had the chance to talk a few times briefly recently for the same reason (plus we're on opposite sides of the world, so time differences make that tricky).

Anyway, as I was reading about all of the insane things that have happened in her life this past year, it was really startling in a lot of ways. First, nearly everything she had posted about and gone through, I had as well. Almost everything. Her life this past year and mine have mirrored each other almost perfectly. A fact like that is shocking enough in itself.

What was even more startling for me, however, was the fact that she was so open and honest about it. Yes, it's her livejournal--a record of her life, a diary of sorts. But at the same time, she knows that people read it, and encourages comments. It showed me that I'm either not as honest, or more proud than her. Or something. In a lot of ways, I was trying to avoid admitting everything that has gone on--even to myself. I have a diary--on paper, completely private, have kept it since 2nd grade--and my entries from the past year are pretty scant.

I'm not sure how much of my reasoning behind came from being in denial and thinking that everything would be different and far less depressing if I simply never recorded it, or from a desire to make sure that if someone DID somehow pick up and read my diary they would not be able to know everything and how bad it was.

As I said, it was a pretty shocking realization when I found out how closely our two lives resembled each other this past year.




In completely unrelated news, I would be the happiest linguistics nerd ever if I got this shirt:
http://www.cafepress.com/+phonetics_tshirt,463163260

Glimpses

This has to be one of the most incredible things I have ever seen, without a doubt. I love being able to take a look back at how the past was, but to be able to see colour photographs rather than the normal black and white. It makes everything seem so much more real and alive.

Albert Kahn's photography: Early 1900s in Colour

Kind of Profound

“I think a lot of the problems we’ve been experiencing come from the fact that no one embraces the miracle and amazement of the present. So many people—steampunks, fundamentalists, hippies, neocons, anti-immigration advocates—feel like there was a better time to live in. They think the present is degraded, faded, and drab. That our world has lost some sort of “spark” or “basic value system” that, if you so much as skim history, you’ll find was never there. Even during the time of the Greeks, there were masses of people lamenting the passing of some sort of “golden age.” But I’d never go back and live in any other time than teetering on tomorrow; this is the greatest time to be alive.”

- Patton Oswalt

Echo Park Time Travel Mart

http://laughingsquid.com/echo-park-time-travel-mart/

I intend to check this place out when I get out to California. Should be awesome :)

To be honest, I'm completely ready to head out to that coast immediately. It is going to be such an amazing adventure to be away from here, starting my life somewhere new. I was kind of afraid for a while when I first found out I'd be moving to San Diego, but I really could not be more thrilled now.

I'm sure it will be weird to be without all my old friends and family for a while, as well as to not automatically know where everything in the area is located and how to get there, but it shouldn't be too difficult an adjustment, and I know it will be a way to get to know tons of new people and have different experiences.

A Prologue

Hey everyone...or, anyone, I guess, since I don't know if people will ever actually read this.

I decided to start posting this blog today because I had been thinking about doing it for a while, and it occurred to me that there was no better time. I won't guarantee what the posts on here will or will not include, because honestly it will just depend on the day. I'm not going to try to limit myself to just covering one subject. Limiting the story of your life would be foolish anyway, don't you think?