Feeding the demon

On the bus, bumping along foreign streets filled with brown brick buildings and their modern counterparts reaching ever towards the heavens from Harlem, my mind wanders. My four days spent predominately in Brooklyn with jaunts to Manhattan has given me a chance to clear my head and come to terms with this indescribable uneasiness that has doggedly pursued me for the last few weeks. After a few years of trying to ignore the hungry demon, he has reared his ugly head. I am officially under the influence of my favorite and most addicting drug: Wanderlust.


Since my return from the UK, I've felt agitated, but not in an angry way. I mean, agitated the same way a washing machine agitates. I've been stirred up. And, really, for the first time since the UK, I felt the calming of the demon. I know that it's only temporary and that I'll likely feel this way forever, but sitting on the bus on my way back from New York City, I had the chance to really reflect on what it is about travel that seems to bring me back to myself. It probably has something to do with the rhythm of buses and trains or even the fact that I literally can't escape my thoughts, especially because I get so motion sick if I read on a bus/train. There's also something remarkable about feeling completely out of place. I loved walking around New York, knowing that I stuck out like a sore thumb--a very happy, brightly dressed, sore thumb.


The wanderlust is about all that, but also about so much more, at least for me. I've wanted to live abroad since I was seven, and while I've been blessed to see many parts of the world and to find my own little corners of it to call home, there's something missing.


I returned from New York today to see my passport still sitting out on my desk. Every time I spot it, I think, Yeah. I should probably put that away. But, I cannot bear to tuck it into the fireproof safe my parents bought me for Christmas in 2009 (that is a whole different story...). It seems that maybe there is a reason I am so taken by this drive. I'm not so naive as to think it isn't connected to the death of my grandfather and my amazing New Year spent in Edinburgh. I think, though, that those occurrences have served as catalysts for me to remember the desires of my heart. I keep returning to lyrics from Dido's song "Life for Rent":


I've always thought 
that I would love to live by the sea 
To travel the world alone 
and live my life more simply 
I have no idea what's happened to that dream 
Cause there's really nothing left here to stop me 

It's just a thought, only a thought 

But if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy 
Well I deserve nothing more than I get 
Cause nothing I have is truly mine


Honestly, I don't know what it all means practically yet, but I feel like I have to listen to the little demon inside me. It's time to surrender to the wanderlust, perhaps in some temporary way over the summer and probably in a more lasting way after my graduation from Harvard Divinity School. He's been hungry for too long.

Me and a snow man in central park.
Yeah. He's sitting on the bench

My good friend from Pagosa, Cindy and Niman.
Niman showed us how to play Tibetan Singing Bowls.

My friend, Darya and I in front of a pretty fountain.
We made a wish.

Cindy and her husband, Ed.
They generously hosted Allison and I in Manhattan.

Allison made it up to New York, despite the snow!

Snowfall

There's something very comforting about tromping through inches upon inches of fresh snow as even more falls down upon me. Honestly, I've never been so aggravated, nor have I ever slipped so much walking merely a few miles. The snow is so wet here. It's as if there is a layer of snow, covered in a layer of ice, covered in another layer of snow, all kept together by slush. No one could have prepared me for the absolute frustration that pulses through my body daily, as if Boston and I are locked in a carefully choreographed dance that I don't know the steps to, leaving me panting while the city moves gracefully to the rhythm of her own song.

It feels good, though, to have a tangible, existential problem. Like perhaps struggling against the forces of nature makes it easier to struggle against this large stone that weighs upon my chest. The death of my grandfather has hooked into something deep --our final conversations, his place in my life, the fact that he was so proud of me, all of this is stirring round in circles within me.

And with all these heavy thoughts and many dreams, something about the snow cools my temper and soothes my heart. The cold allows me to turn inwards without losing myself in the abyss. 

I've been unsettled by my grieving process. At moments, I get upset, but then I calm myself. At others, I feel that I should be upset, but I'm not, so I try to work myself up. And, then there are moments out of the blue where I break down in public. No matter what I feel, I long to feel something different--to cry or to stop crying.

I keep returning to the words a wise man recently told me, "It's not what if, but what is." This sentiment echoing in my mind, Florence + the Machine pumping through my headphones, trudging through the white powder and slush, I can breathe a little easier. And, if I forget to do so, there are a million little snowflakes landing upon my face to remind me that it's as simple as inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.

-Sierra

A hatchet might be a useful tool for traveling to school.

A winter view of historical Prospect Hill.
If you look carefully, you can see the moon.

Imprudence and Mourning

My grandfather died this morning. That doesn't sound right. Like the timing is off. My grandfather survived a pretty horrific car crash earlier this fall. We thought we might lose him for a while. But, we didn't.


Over Christmas, he spoke to me about making the most of my life and taking care of my body. He encouraged me to enjoy myself in London and to apply myself to my studies. He spoke of his newfound feeling of vulnerability and mortality. He said I had too many theories.


Last night, my grandfather went to sleep next to the woman he'd been through heaven and hell with, two yappy dogs asleep beside them. This morning around four a.m. he stopped breathing. My grandmother awoke to her still breathed husband.


Somehow, the timing feels wrong. But, everything that happens, happens, doesn't it? So, the timing can't be off. I'm not saying I believe in meant to be's, but that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what might have happened. What matters is what is taking place. My Pops is dead.


Part of me thinks such public mourning as this is imprudent, but perhaps I've been among the Puritans too long. I come from a long line of emoters. We laugh, we cry. I'm sure over the next few weeks as we prepare for the funeral, I will share many memories of my grandfather that will elicit tears and laughter. For now, I will just say that he is the only grandfather I've even known. We used to split boxes of cookies n' cream ice cream and watch the Ninja Turtles. As a kid, you take those things for granted, but I'm sure he wasn't interested in the finer points of Splinter's philosophy. I was lucky to have my grandfather in my life for so long. I'm lucky to mourn him so deeply now. I hope you will bear with me over the next few weeks as I honor the memory of a great man.


In the meantime, I want to share something that reminds me that perhaps public mourning is important:


Funeral Blues
by W.H. Auden


Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good. 

The Ride

Friends, Romans, Countrymen--

It is with great excitement that I announce that I have officially registered for AIDS/Life Cycle Ride, also simply known as "The Ride." This summer in early June I will ride my bike from San Francisco to L.A. to raise money for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, an organization that among other efforts helps care for individuals living with HIV/AIDS. The ride is 545 miles and will take seven days. For Christmas, my grandparents decided they would buy my bike for me, which I'm in the process of securing as we speak.

Many of you probably know that HIV/AIDS hits close to home for me. My uncle (who you've heard about from time to time on here) has been HIV positive for 21 years. As you can imagine completing this ride will be emotional for me. The fact that my uncle is healthy and will be riding alongside me (or more likely way in front of me) makes the whole thing so much more special. I know that this will be a life-altering week and I am excited to train and fund raise for such an amazing cause.

I have agreed to raise $3000 between now and then. I would love any support anyone can give, seriously even as little as $5 can make a difference. And even more importantly, please have patience with me as I contact you via email, text, or phone in the coming months to solicit your support. I really hate fund raising, perhaps more than anything, but this is a worthy cause.

You can view my page here and our team page here. I am riding with my uncle and his friends, who all work in the adult film industry--hence the amazing team name.

HIV/AIDS is an epidemic that has crippled our world and continues to do so. I look forward to being a part of the battle against this devastation.

With the highest of hopes,

Sierra

We'll take a cup o' kindness yet...

It’s hard to know quite where to start after a week like the one I just had. It makes sense to start at the beginning, but really, how interesting is a chronological account of a journey abroad? And, how does that make any sense when I can't even keep the order of events straight? Why proffer a contrived semblance of reality when the madness is so much more fun?

After seven days in the UK and a bit of a hike/walk through the entire city of Newark to catch my second train to London, I tucked into a seat next to a older English man who seemed utterly unamused by my presence, even after I did my best oh-look-how-cute-and-American-and-confused-I-am. Apparently, he didn't like redheads. Trying to soothe my aching self, I pulled out a delicious gluten-free sweet that I had bought. This incredible concoction of gastronomical heaven helped me to cherish my last few hours riding along in a bouncing train in the English countryside--truly a perfect moment. As I read the label (of course I did), I started to realize how amazing this company Honeybuns actually is. Not only do they make gluten-free food, but they also use their business to contribute to making the world a better place. Their labels talk about the efforts they take to be green as a company and about an organization they sponsor called Samaritans which offers a listening ear. What a notion! To live simply and happily and to make the world a better place.

After a short meditation on simplicity and the beauty of living, I spent the remainder of the ride reflecting on the experiences I'd had over the last week, which felt like a lot longer than a week, and what perhaps that aching feeling inside me meant.

The greatest moments were the ones that couldn't be planned. Hiccups in the plan or twists in the road (sometimes literally) wove together into this perfect tapestry of unexpected brilliance. From five hours alone in the car with my new brother-in-law getting to know him to his lovely friends who became our Edinburgh companions, everything was amazing. Hogmanay (the New Years' celebration in Edinburgh) was outstanding with some of the greatest fireworks I've ever seen and a rousing rendition of Auld Lang Syne which prompted a Scottish fellow to tell our group that we sounded like cats. 

The "Big Wheel" as the Brits called it.
Beautiful and fun to ride!

Melissa and I-typical self-portrait.

Lovely fireworks!

After three days of barely seeing sunlight, my sisters Tiffany and Melissa took me on a tour of London. I saw the changing of the guard in front of Buckingham Palace, rode the tube, walked around Piccadilly Circus, listened to the drunken rants of an Irishman (made me proud), saw Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, and spent a great day with my sisters. The two moments that stand out most were the least planned. First, we stopped into a beautiful church just to have a peek and wandered into the rehearsal for that night's performance of Handel's Messiah. A rather normal looking fellow stood at the front and after a false start or two, the orchestra started playing harmoniously. For a moment I zoned out and then this booming, incredible, completely unexpected voice came out of the man in front. We stayed for the entirety of the song, swept up by the beauty of that moment. Later, we went to Melissa and Tiffany's (dare I say) favorite play Blood Brothers. It was outstanding. The acting was phenomenal, the story line devastating, the songs beautiful and compelling. All in all, London was incredible. The next day was spent at Tiffany, Rob, and Melissa's new place in High Wycombe. Mostly we just hung out and watched The Inbetweeners (a hilarious, terribly British TV show that makes me laugh in that embarrassing way that so many of you are familiar with. You know, the one where I start crying and laugh for about five minutes after everyone else is over it. Yeah. That kind of laughing).

Rob and I drove three hours to Lincoln where I spent my last day wandering through the city alone (with my giant bag on my back). On the way there, I was nervous and afraid that maybe I would hate having to explore by myself, but as soon as I said goodbye to my brother-in-law and set off to see the cathedral, that old part of me came back to life. Being alone is such a wildly comforting feeling, especially when I know it's only temporary. I spent a few hours in the cathedral, another hour just wandering around by the castle and the other old parts of the town, and then finally an hour or so in the pub. Now, that, my friends, is a day in England. Somewhere between the pub and my train ride the next day, I worked on my posh (which stands for Port Out Starboard Home, the name of the expensive cabins on boats back in the day) accent, realized it had been over a year since I'd been abroad, and felt truly happy.

The lovely town of Lincoln, UK

The Cathedral during the day

A reflection from the Cathedral onto the sidewalk
that I thought was really cool.
Seriously, I have like fifteen of this same photo.

A grandfather and his grandson playing and making
shadows in the light of the church.

The Cathedral by night.

As for the aching feeling I felt on my train ride back to London, let's call it one part nervousness about making my flight (which I did just in the nick of time), two parts befuddlement, and one part exhaustion. My befuddlement, of course, was at realizing that yet again I had found another little piece of the world to love. Yet again, I had found people I could be friends with, places I could explore, and a public transit system I could use (I'm guessing by this point in my blogging, you understand that I am obsessed with public transit. Having grown up without it, I think it is a modern miracle. One day, I'd like to write a book about how I think public transit says a lot about a place...one day). My befuddlement was also at the realization that I long for foreign lands. Sometimes, I think I have convinced myself not to feel that way, but I do. I want to be somewhere...else. Now, I'm not particularly interested in the roots of this feeling (I can just hear some psychologist in a crazy German accent saying, "As you can see, ze child wizout a stable childhood growz up to be ze adult wiz ze wanderlust.") I do, however, wonder what it means for my future. There is so much of the world I have yet to see and I wonder how I will see it all. Mind you, how. Not if.

Finally in the plane about to depart from Heathrow, I had left another little piece of me in England. I'm not worried, though, I have plenty of reasons to go back. And, the flight takes the same amount of time as flying to California.

All of these thoughts and memories swirling inside me, I am slowly getting back into my routine here in Somerville. I'm in the laundromat as we speak, excited to have clean clothes. I'll work all weekend and next week I'm attending a poetry workshop two of my friends are running. Hopefully, somewhere in the midst of all that, I'll be able to knock a few things off my ambitious to-do list.

Life is good here. I'm a little restless, but no worse for wear. 

In honor of the time of year, may we all raise a cup o' kindness yet for Auld Lang Syne. Happy New Year, everyone!

-Sierra

On a final note, my New Year's Resolution is to spend Saturdays for self-care (running, getting in long bike rides, playing with my dog, sleeping) and staying in contact. Hopefully, you can expect a new post from me on Saturdays, though there may be points where I slack...