i haven't written in a long while! (PART TWO)

it turns out that i am a terrible blogger. and so i'm sitting in a hotel room in san francisco at 1:42am pacific time (which means that somehow it's already friday, which means that somehow it will already be saturday tomorrow, which is the day that i leave this side of the country), trying my best to sound belatedly penitent, which might require a series of excuses, but for the moment will have to be justified as follows:

i spent this last month doing nothing, and it was wonderful.
by nothing, i mean the nothing between graduating and putting together a final show and then finishing another fifteen-ish paintings and putting together another show - between that and sitting here on my heels in a swivel chair, overlooking the lights shining bravely through the san francisco fog, adjusting my legs every now and then in a futile attempt to keep my left foot from creeping right back to that spot where it has begun to prickle in sleep.
by nothing, i mean the nothing of spending my evenings on a porch with dear friends, soaking in the milky bath of iron and wine on vinyl under the nectarine glow of japanese lanterns powered by halogen lights. by nothing, i mean the nothing of incense at noon and watermelon at dusk (and dawn and everything in between) and poetry in pajamas around dinner. by nothing, i mean the nothing of admiring threads of night rain connect ground to street light and back again.
in two days (or i suppose i must correct for the hour, and say tomorrow), i will wheel two large black suitcases (the old ones with the faded identifying tags reading LIA FARNSWORTH2901S KENWOOD STSLCUT 84106 in eight-year-old script) out of the hotel, into the airport, and board a plane to new york, where i am going to live for the rest of the summer while i train for teach for america.
tfa: that's the other part of my month of nothing. i did a lot of reading. i did a lot of attitude shifting. i decided to accept my acceptance into the 2009 connecticut corps. i did a lot more reading, and paperwork (oh, the masses of paperwork), and studying, and more reading (oh, the masses of pre-institute work), and writing, and now i'm sitting here trying to wake my left foot out of prickly slumber and succeeding only in procrastinating my last hours of work by resuscitating this dying blog.

i needed this last month. i needed it to fall back in love with provo, to fall back into the magical stupor of accidentally bumping into a friend under the tree-green light of the street, of walking through an open door just to say hello, of gathering around a guitar and a sofa on the lawn. i needed it to remember my gratitude for having so many people to love. i needed the crunched drive to california with my family to laugh and sing jumbled italian to our old pavarotti cd's (o, sole mio?) and engage jungle chants to my sister's disney mix (in the jungle?) to remember my gratitude for having such a family to love. i needed today to spend entirely alone in sweats in my hotel room with nothing but my teach for america prep books and masses of washington red apples (brought to you by this morning's continental breakfast) to remember that i need time alone. to love.
i jump-started this blog out of dying ashes about this time a year ago, ready to leave to korea, unsure of the entirety of my future. maybe i'm still pretty unsure, and maybe it'll swing yet a lot of de-LITE-ful surprises my way (actually, let's make that a definitely) - but of the three thousand significant changes this year has brought into my life, one i can back concretely: this august, i'm moving to new haven, connecticut for two years to teach first grade at amistad academy, an achievement first charter school. and i couldn't be more thrilled.