my mind is a garden

I am a tired bird today. I lay in bed willing my eyes not to clamp shut again, willing my head not to slump against the pillow and come back up with the indentations of a crinkled sheets once more. One nap is enough for one day, I tell myself, but still my body insists otherwise, reminding me that I have been up since before the sun this morning. Running, the reason for such an early rise, tires me, but it is nothing, I dare say, compared to the toll of babysitting. Negotiating with a seven-year-old who only wants to watch TV and/or a piggyback ride while simultaneously going bankrupt in a game of Monopoly against an eight-year-old who also wants your undivided attention while also trying to make sure the pet dog is not, in fact, going to kill an innocent neighborhood cat can be quite draining. (The dog may be the most well-behaved being in the house, I'm afraid. Myself included, perhaps. I try.) No, I don't think I shall have kids for quite some time.

Anyway, that's been my life in a nutshell lately, since I got home. Babysitting, and running, and watching the Olympics in the evenings although that, sadly, is over. Lots of routine punctured by some bursts of, well, excitement, I guess-- I had my birthday party last weekend and I'll most likely post about it when I get my pictures back.

I do think that I'm happy right now, when I can push the worries of the impending year to the back of my brain. Those thoughts of school creep up and stress me out when I should be happily enjoying my summer. I could be truly happy if for those nagging worries that never fully go away. Forgive me if this is trite, but I tend to think of my mind as sort of a garden. All the worries are weeds, and while there are some that can be easily plucked out, or remedied with a slight of hand, others are more deeply rooted. You can cut off the stems, forget them for a while, but they will grow back eventually. I'm trying my best right now just to cover them up with flowers, with nice thoughts of 'living in the moment' and all that. It's going okay...but I can't help but working myself up about insanely banal things sometimes.

Like reading. When I was younger, I was something of a voracious reader. I read a lot, but more than that, I was really invested in these stories. To this day a lot of my disappointments in life stem from the fact that my life is not a novel. (I say that in all seriousness.) I have always thought of myself firstly as a reader, and then as a writer, photographer, musician, etc. etc. A lot of my identity, how I define myself, is rooted in being a reader.

So this is why it distresses me that, lately, I can't seem to get through a book. It started with school, when I didn't have 'enough time' to read regularly. But now it's the summer, and I've been going to the library and coming back with five books, only to return about three of them unfinished. I've speculated the cause of this annoying phenomenon, as I do with most things. Did my attention span somehow become shorter, due to this awful internet culture of the 21st century? Is this just something that happens when you grow up? Is that why so many adults have to put "read 25 books" on their New Years Resolutions, a number I always found to be insanely small? Am I just reading the wrong books? I don't know, but it makes me sad. It's always alarming when something that used to be a rock-solid fact is no longer true.

I hope I can get back into reading. Everyone says (and they're right) that you have to read to write. Maybe there's some correlation between my not-reading and my not-writing?

I've been wanting to write here (or anywhere, really; just write in general) for a while, but instead of forcing it, I've just been kind of waiting the dry spell out. I don't really recommend this strategy if you ever want to get anything accomplished, but sometimes I just need a break, even from the things I enjoy. I want to get in the habit of writing even when I don't feel like it, though, because, really, not being in the 'mood' for it is no excuse. If I just sit down and do it, something will come. And it may not be the best something, but it's better than nothing. I think it would be good for me.

(This was a long, disconnected post. If you actually read it, you're cool. Thanks.)

a last cabin hurrah

I've been home several days from what was probably my last time at the cabin in Truckee. My grandparents are selling it and the "for sale" sign in front was a strange and foreign sight to my eyes. I've been going there once or twice a year all my life. I've known it in hot summers and snowy Christmases, and it in turn has seen me through all seasons of my life thus far. In fourth grade, I wrote an essay on it for school (prompt: write about a favorite place) and that essay is hanging by the fireplace in the cabin. I'd use different words now, but the sentiment is still the same. It's one of the most beautiful places and it means a lot to me. I hesitate to call it a "second home" but it's full of family and traditions and lots of memories. This time, a last hurrah, was no different. The days were packed with horseback-riding, kayaking, tubing, swimming, and hiking, as well other things, like s'more-making.

When we left, I surprised myself by not getting overly emotional about it. It's bittersweet, yes, but now there are new places to look forward to. And besides, I've come to know the memories were the best things you ever had. (x)

a million and one ways to write a blog post

I keep on trying to start this post in my head and my train of thought keeps getting derailed. I don't know what to say. I could start by saying it's August and wonder aloud, as people often do, about where the time has gone. I could mention the fact that I've been in California since the 23rd and that I'm leaving tomorrow. I could say that I'm going to be flying without parents for the first time and that though I'm sixteen years old, it still makes me slightly apprehensive. I could talk about how I'm going to be home for less than 24 hours before I leave to go camping in West Texas for the weekend. I could muse about how I've barely been home all summer, and how that makes me feel (verdict: confused, mostly, and also happy and slightly worried). I could follow that tangent and bring up the fact that I really want to go to Kansas City to see my cousins this month but my parents are still wavering about it, as the date comes closer and closer. I could talk about how there's a lot I'm still unsure about when it comes to the future, but I know it will all work out.

There's a lot of other things I could talk about, too: the Olympics, and my own athletic endeavors, and cooking dinner, and riding horses, and missing people, and Oscar Wilde, and Paris, and driving golf carts, and birthday parties, and how I actually can't wait to play guitar again, and how you notice all these new things right before you leave a place for the last time.

There's a lot I could say, actually. There're a million and one ways to write this post, but only one way, I feel, to end it. And that is by saying I can't wait until I can get back on a computer and blog here again. This iPad ain't cutting it.