Estoy Aprendiendo

I slipped into life here. I walk between cars without following a local. I meander through the streets and sit in the parks and joke with the vendors. I wake up at 6:30 from the sunshine (instead of 11 from the slight twilight). I watch the lava roll down the side of the volcano. I greet people in Spanish (not without mishap - I tried to ask one person if they spoke English in Norwegian and universally answer "come estás?" with "va bene"). I've found a bit of a rhythm. Spanish classes, homework over coffee, beer with the other students at sunset, reading in the hammock. I asked someone the date today and realized it was a full 4 days later than I thought. My friends teased me about being excited about having homework (it's been a year since graduation, I think I can miss school already). And of course, my own spin on student life - los tejidos.

It's been two weeks and I still haven't stopped noticing the colors. The women wearing cortes and huipiles. The endless stacks of scarves, skirts, bags, hammocks, and wall hangings. The ease with which women maintain a conversation while picking up warp strands to add complicated birds and flowers to their weavings.

Several days ago I was sitting in el parque central working on my homework. "Señorita, quieres una bufanda? Un regalo por tu mama" "no gracias" "por que no?" That's a new reply. I look up, straight at this woman covered in beautiful weavings. "Por que mia vida está en mia mochila" My life is in my backpack. She laughs. Emboldened, I say that I want to learn to weave. She seems surprised and I pull out the belt I've been making. "Es bonita." My Spanish skills are at their limit as she asks me how it's made. "Una de derecha...otra izquierda...arriba...abajo...cruces en medio...", I motion fumbling for words. But for a weaver it's enough. "Es muy bonita. Adios amiga."

A few days later I ventured out of Antigua for the first time. My goal was to visit San Antonio, only about 15 minutes away, to see their style of weaving. I get on the bus, clearly a confused non-local. Luckily, they paint the destination on the front of the bus. I sit next to a woman and she smiles, and I ask if she's from San Antonio. She nods and confirms, and proceeds to ask me, politely, what the hell I'm doing on this bus. I smile brightly and say I want to see the weavings. Oh, you want to buy weavings? No, no, no, I want to see the weavings. And learn to weave. And she offers to teach me. Why not? I get off the bus with her in town and follow her home. She greets her startled family - I'm bringing home a friend! And vanishes into one of the rooms off the slight courtyard (dirt patch with a tree) to find a loom. Her little daughter greets me while the elder one is cooking on the outdoor wood stove. After a few standard questions, including "are you here to buy my mom's weavings?" she decides that I'm not too scary. At that point, "do you want to see my iguana?" I'm confused. I think I've misheard her. But I say yes, and she pulls a string next to her, and an iguana with a leash tied around its middle falls out of the tree. I start laughing, and dutifully pet the iguana, much to their amazement. I get an hour of weaving instruction after that. Just enough to test out the loom and understand how much work goes into picking out designs. Every row with multiple colors takes forever. I can't imagine the time for a piece completely covered in pictures.

Later I return to San Antonio. I can't locate my previous teacher so I wander through the artisans market. I sit with a woman who is working on a heavily decorated piece. I get very confused when her daughter calls it a servilleta. Why would you put so much effort into a napkin? Her daughter proceeds to use me as a jungle gym while I talk to her mother about weaving and buying a loom. I return a few days later and am greeted with a running hug from the daughter. You're back! You're back! I watch as the woman spreads out the weft for the loom between two lengths of wood. Then she picks up every strand individually, separated by a loop of yarn, to create a heddle. Next she spreads the strands to the desired width and inserts pieces to maintain the cross in the warp. Finally it is time to weave a few rows to secure the edge. Once the end is tight, she slowly reverses all the pieces and turns the loom around. The secured edge has become the top. She repeats the process to secure the bottom and it is my turn to try the loom. I do. I am much slower than she is. But I weave a few rows and am invited back to visit before I leave happily with my new loom.

I've had my gringa moments. On the bus when I'm the noticeably tall and pale girl. Those are adjectives I'm not used to hearing in reference to myself, but here they apply. I was a full head taller than my Spanish teacher, I finally understand how my friends feel talking to me. Or when I try to bargain and can't hold my own. When I'm hungry for dinner at 6pm.

But I have my local moments too - when I start complaining that it's cold in the shade despite having spent 5 months in Northern Europe.

Slow Down

I wish the cars would as I try to cross two lanes of traffic to walk home. I wish the cashier at the grocery would as I try to recall Spanish phrases to my memory. But for the first time in months, I'm not repeating this phrase to myself.

I wander through the parque central and sit on the curb to listen to a marimba band. I laze in a hammock and devour yet another book. I meander down the streets and poke my head into shops. I push my way through busy stalls in the market. I drink coffee and chat with people about suggestions for my visit to Guatemala.

For the last several days I have been telling people that I'm not sure if the time change or the climate has been a bigger shock. I had to relocate my sunglasses, somehow not broken after five months in the bottom of my backpack. I walked around barefoot and wondered if I'd only dreamed about the snow a week ago. I wasn't entirely joking when I asked people what the bright thing in the sky, trying so hard to burn my pale skin, was called.

Brief twilight on the solstice

Sunny skies and a new city 

Maybe it's the sunshine, coupled with the jet lag, that justifies my naps in the hammock. Maybe it's the language. I can't rush here - I don't have the words for the questions I want to ask. And I'm not leaving until I've asked. But overwhelmingly I feel that it would be wrong to rush here. That I'd miss the point. There's too much joy in just being here. Watching kids sell candy and the colorful blur of women in woven skirts selling scarves. The amount of color is nearly as disorienting as the sunshine that first day. The shouts of vendors in the market. The smoke rising lazily up from Fuego, one of the three volcanoes visible from town. Wondering what mysteries lie behind each door on the busy streets, and entering one to find a green, shady oasis. The myriad of couples holding hands in the park. The smell of frying tortillas.

Antigua is not a big city. Most of it is contained in about nine walkable blocks of seemingly identical red, yellow, orange, and white single-story houses lining cobbled streets. Yet the charm isn't simply in seeing it. You slip into this place. You watch the sun sink, and the lights on the trees in the plaza brighten. A slip of a girl pass by holding her older sister's hand. You listen to the band and watch a solitary elderly couple dance in the park. Without trying, you slow down.

The inevitable question to a traveler: how long will you be here?

Until it's time to go.

A Day in Kuressaare

Summing Up 2015

As 2016 approaches, I was talking with a friend about goals for the next year and reflecting about the one just finishing. And I realized that my dominant feeling this year was one of disorientation. Some continual variation between being confused and unsure and giggling delightedly about simply living from one moment to the next. On further thought, I guess this wasn't such a surprising emotion. 2015 was a year of variation and transition and linking different experiences. Of new places, people, languages, and lifestyles.

As I wrestled through my reflections of this year I tried to summarize it. I tried to put it into numbers.

In 2015 I spent 8 months outside of the USA. I visited 19 countries and 15 states*. I read 53 books. I graduated with the Middlebury class of 2014.5. I've written 0 lines of code. I've had 4 different phone numbers. I hiked my first Colorado 14ers. I visited 1 emergency room. I skied 11 miles with 2 friends to the highest point in New York. I skated 15km on the Rideau Canal in Ottawa. I rode roller coasters until the world was spinning, about 8 hours, in Orlando. I watched the northern lights dance on 3 different nights in 4 different places. I turned 24. I attempted to hug 2 reindeer (1 success). I baked cupcakes with 2 girls I've known since I was 2, the first time we've all been in the same city in 5 years. I earned 61 points in a candlelit Go game punctuated at 15 minute intervals by the need to put more wood in the sauna stove so it would heat.

I wish I could include the number of cups of coffee drunk, photographs taken, stitches knit, islands visited, and apologies for not understanding a new language. These defy my counting ability. I'm happy to say that the number of new friends and kind people who gave me a smile, a chat, or a snippet of advice also defy my counting ability.

I hitched my first rides. I biked across an international border. I sat in the front seat of a plane. I slept on trains, planes, busses, and ferries.

I slid through ice caves in Wisconsin, escaped from Gringotts in Florida, watched a solar eclipse in Reykjavik, waded through knee deep snow in Andorra, swam every few hours in Croatia, played capoeira in Italy, and learned rock and roll dance in Norway. I spent a month living at home after graduation in order to enjoy the freedom of getting bored, the conversations and hugs from my parents, and the purring of my cats. I saw the same street performer in both Edinburgh and Boulder CO. I visited Santa in Finland and a friend in NYC watched the live stream online.

I spent New Years in Idaho, Valentine's Day in Minnesota, Easter in Italy, Thanksgiving in Norway, and Christmas in Finland.

Disorienting indeed.

"How did I end up here?" has been a constant refrain in my head. As is "I'm so lucky." A balance of extremes and odd juxtapositions. "I'm getting better at meeting people but I'm worried that I'm forgetting how to have friends" and "I want to go everywhere but I also don't want to leave here yet". Balancing loneliness with a desire to keep moving. Balancing the joy in flexibility and freedom with the need for some consistency in my schedule to keep myself healthy.

When I started traveling I thought maybe by getting disoriented I would find a new North Star. A personal magnetic north. A resolution for New Years perhaps. Instead, I've started to find a vague comfort in being disoriented. The ability to relax on a bus ride even though I don't know where I'm headed once I get off again. An assurance that even though I might be embarrassed by asking for help and looking like an idiot, I might also meet a new friend. The joy of a hug after weeks alone. The comfort of a cup of coffee and a place to read my book on a cold day. A resonance in the idea that sometimes you don't need a direction, you just have to take a step.

And yet I keep doubting this feeling. This idea of just being. I keep saying that I need a goal, or a destination, or a way to analyze what I've done. Looking at my friends and telling myself that they're responsible and I'm goofing off. That they're lucky to have goals, and I'm searching for mine still. That once I find it I'll have something to work towards. Maybe that's true. Maybe not.

When I think about this year I smile. I'm proud of having adapted to a lot of new situations, even while I'm annoyed at myself for my poor language skills and the shyness that makes it tiring to reach out to new people. I'm happy that the newness and disorientation didn't prevent the fun. I'm glad to have seen cities that I had only read about. And to have visited unexpectedly places I had never heard of. There isn't a conclusion to my travels yet. There isn't a single lesson or a paper or plan for life. There simply is the joy and value of experience.

Everyone makes a map of their life. They add ideas and places and experiences constantly. And sometimes maps are pulled out and analyzed and an efficient route is plotted to a destination. And other times cartographers wander around and add detail to the empty sections so that the information will be there when it's needed someday. One wanders simply to see where they might end up.

Sometimes it's scary to wander into an empty space on your map. Sometimes you're tired and you don't want to walk at all. Sometimes you're paralyzed by how many different alleys branch off the street you're wandering on. Sometimes you forget that the next corner can make all the difference. Sometimes someone walks with you. Sometimes you see new things when you tread old paths. And sometimes you look up startled at how lovely it all is. But always, always, you add a new detail.

This year, in 2016, I want to continue to wander and to see and to learn and to enjoy. And when my head spins on the days where I'm tired and lonely and cold and second-guessing my decision to leave behind everything I knew, I resolve to take a step.

*I don't count airport visits. For you curious people the lists are:

States: Idaho, Vermont, New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Florida, Massachusetts, Connecticut, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa

Countries: USA, Canada, Iceland, France, Spain, Andorra, Italy, San Marino, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Scotland, Norway, Finland, Estonia

The Guilt of No Reaction

I will openly confess, I am VERY bad at reading the news. Ask my best friend, I am usually quite uninformed about current events and my efforts to change this usually fizzle out as soon as I find a new book. I've found myself reading the news more while I travel because people I meet are curious about my thoughts as an American, and ignore my protests that I don't know enough to have an opinion.

It's very disconcerting to read the news right now. I don't know how to reconcile what I hear with where I am. How am I supposed to feel when I read about Paris and send the message to a friend, "I'm so glad you're ok", and then look up and out the window of the train at the beautiful mountains and the first snow I've seen all fall?

This isn't the first time I've struggled with what I would call "guilt of no reaction."

Earlier this fall I got the news that my aunt had passed away. I read the message, and then I walked outside and enjoyed the sunny day in Edinburgh. I felt guilty, confused. Even if the news wasn't unexpected, shouldn't I be more upset? But I didn't know anyone here. And people were excited. And the sun was shining. The news didn't fit into my life here, and I didn't know how to react. I recognized this feeling; it was the same at Middlebury. Bad news didn't have a visible place on campus, unless it was stress. My senior year a friend from home passed away, and I remember sitting down in the dining hall a few minutes after getting the news, "hey, Katie, are you ok?" "...I guess so?"

I was up in Shetland on 9/11 this year. I spent all day wandering around, discussing knitting patterns and reading my book, and listening to a fiddler in the hostel. And eventually I realized that no one I was talking to was going to mention it. But I had that moment when I remembered, very vividly, getting the news on the school bus as a kid. Maybe it was a good way to remember, though, to be welcomed warmly into a new community in a new country.

A few weeks later I was on a bus across the island. The driver was playing the news and I stared out the window. I heard the words "shooting" and "Oregon" and moved up to the front row. The driver looked at me, shook his head, and remarked on the tragedies resulting from gun access in the U.S.. "It's so sad," I answered, trying to think whether my friends in that area had all graduated already. "It's in their constitution" he informed me. I blinked. He didn't realize I was American. Eventually, I got off the bus and put my thoughts away and walked on the beach and went to a class on lace knitting.

People keep complimenting me by saying that I don't act American. Should I be flattered or offended?

But I think the response to that right now will be, but Katie, you're being close-minded and elitist. Everything you've mentioned above involves white people. You haven't mentioned the recent tragedies in countries except France. I don't know enough. Except for "It's so sad. It's so scary" I have trouble putting words to my feelings in response to these events.

I keep reading the news. I keep shuddering. And then I put down my phone or I leave the wifi and I look around. And I don't know how to react. And I feel guilty about that. And I go for a walk, and take pictures of the coast, and laugh when the sun sets at 3:30, and read science fiction, and knit. And I'm happy. And life is easy. And I still feel a little guilty.

But in the middle of a conversation with some Norwegian students about the flaws in education systems, I realize: I can feel guilty, and I probably will, but maybe my non-reactions are a good thing too. If it's hard to react because the news feels so far away, so unrelated to life here, then that fear isn't everywhere yet. I'm making friends with different backgrounds than me, and I'm changing my thoughts based on their experiences. I'm learning about folk crafts from people who are kind enough to help me just because they want to share their interests.

I'm spending day after day in beautiful places, learning from generous people.

Maybe that is a lesson I should be learning right now.

I didn't turn my profile picture to the French flag this week. Every time Facebook prompted me, I ignored it because it felt meaningless to me. So far away. How does it show my support to click a button on a social website when I can't even articulate my feelings to myself? Instead, I made friends with a few strangers and laughed with them as we discussed education and travel and art. And yes, they complimented me on being un-American.

Maybe I'm ignorant. Maybe I'm selfish. But maybe, maybe, I found a peaceful reaction. As the world reels in shock and fear, as hate and condemnation are thrown around, I added one link of good feelings between two people from different places. I gained a little bit of faith in the kindness of strangers. I left a little love in a landscape far from where I grew up.

And while I was finishing writing this, sitting in a coffee shop window, a boy tapped on the window to get my attention. I looked up, he tapped his wrist where a watch would be, and I held up my phone to show him the time. He blew me a kiss and walked away. And I laughed.

It's a tiny thing, a few seconds of connection, but it made me smile for the first time since I opened BBC when I sat down here. Back when my coffee was still warm. The fear isn't just in my phone. The world isn't as carefree as that boy. I still don't know how to react. But I don't feel guilty about that smile.

Fjord Photo Fun!

Fall colors on the Flåmsbana

 View out from Flåm

 Fall colors might just rival Middlebury

 These guys like the view too

 Wow

 On the water!

 I want to go up there...

 Øvre-Eidfjord

Geography and Gymnastics

Last night (it really was about 4pm but it was very dark out) I found myself stopping by a window in downtown Trondheim to watch the kids inside run around doing gymnastics. They played in the foam pits, did flips on the mats, swung from the uneven bars. I found myself smiling and remembering this phase in my own childhood. In Cultural Geography class I wrote a journal entry about these memories, which I reread and have decided to share. Maybe it's cheating to recycle my writing, but I'll call it a bonus post instead.

 February 23, 2014 - Stretching

"Can you have a memory without a place? This question was asked in passing in class about a week ago, and ever since it has been haunting my mind. Nearly every conversation I’ve had of late has included the phrase “this reminds me of...” or “it’s just like this one time at...”. The notion of a memory separate from a place appeals to me because memories can be triggered by scents and sounds and often feel like they contain only emotions. I have found, though, that every memory I believe to be independent of location comes back to a specific spot. The picture of my grandfather is set in the living room of a house in central Idaho. The scent of woodsmoke goes to the cabin in northern Wisconsin. The chilling cold at sunrise is associated with an overpass in southern Minnesota. The song “Peaceful Easy Feeling” places me on a highway in Utah.

Today I think I found peace with this notion that place and memory are inseparable with an unexpected trip down memory lane. I was at capoeira practice in the CFA, and about five of us had just finished warming up and were stretching. As I sat on my knees and placed the back of my hands on the hard floor, leaning back to stretch my wrists in preparation for acrobatic work, I traveled back to my childhood. When I was about eight years old I was interested in gymnastics. Fundamentally, this was a passing phase in my childhood. I quit as soon as I got scared of doing back handsprings. But for a few years I spent several evenings a week at Ricochets Gym. We entered through a back hallway connected to a furniture store. The floor was covered by blue mats and pits of foam blocks. The air was always dry and smelled like chalk. It was cold in the hallway and warm in the gym. We jumped on the trampoline, flipped on the bars, fell off of the beams, and occasionally (but only if we had been good) we could jump into the foam pits and throw blocks at each other. And one of the first things we did every class was to line up and stretch. With a special focus on the wrists in preparation for doing handstands and cartwheels. We sat on our knees on the squishy blue mats, still cold in our sparkly leotards, and placed the backs of our hands on the ground, and leaned back watching the graceful older girls on the balance beams.

After gymnastics I found a longer lasting interest in skiing and running, and it was not until college that I returned to doing cartwheels on a regular basis. But no matter the situation, when I lean back to stretch my wrists I find myself as an energetic eight year old sitting in Ricochets Gym, complete with the dry air and scent of chalk. A memory doesn’t exist without a place. Every action we take is stored in our memory as an entry tagged by place. In computer science, we would say that human memory is a map from events to lists of places. This provides order and a way to relate different memories. Today, when I found myself in a memory many years and miles away, I followed it to the next place. I wandered through the many locations that could be associated with this action. I ran cross-country in Minnesota, I removed logs from trails in Idaho, I went rock-climbing in Arizona, and I finally found myself back on a hard, cold floor in Middlebury, Vermont, on my fifth day of college listening to a senior explain how to stretch your wrists properly so you don’t hurt them doing handstands. I’ve spent about as long playing capoeira as I did doing gymnastics. There are miles and years separating my current self from my eight-year-old memories. Yet a single action connects them all. So today, I stood up and and added another cartwheel to the list.

It's been awhile since I wrote this, and there have been many more cartwheels to add to the list, in a number of different countries. On beaches and mountains and down the hallways at school. Maybe today will have another.