I Am the Luckiest Person in the World

Well, everyone, this is it. My last week in Washington is wrapping up, and I feel so many good emotions, I don't really know what to say.


For the past three months I feel like I've been living in a dream...working outside everyday on a farm, staying with a loving and supportive family, meeting beautiful people almost daily...the good energy has almost never stopped coming to me, and I'm trying my hardest not to forget it.

Last Sunday, my host family had a small party for me with family friends, pie, and sangria. It was a nice closure for me, and to my surprise they all had nice things to say about my impact on them, their kids, the community, etc. I gave them each a goodbye hug after a game of croquet in the spitting rain, and told them how much I've appreciated their support in the past few months.

As I watched from the front porch the last family trickle away like the tears on my cheek, I told Sylvia how I felt like I was the luckiest person in the world. She put her arm around me, smiled, and said, "You are."

I am the luckiest person in the world. And I would like to thank a few people for making me that one lucky person.

Thank you, Sylvia, for being my rock during my time here. I am so happy you cautiously opened your home up to an intern three months ago, because that enabled us to meet each other and have so many fun times and reflective conversations together. Thank you for encouraging me not to clear-cut my "forest" and embrace the person I am who everyone else might not want to see. I am very sad to be leaving you now, but it won't be forever; I have no doubt that we'll meet again.
And I've decided that in addition to being my soul mother, you are also now one of my favorite people.

Sylvia with our delicious pizza at the Farmer's Market

Thank you, Nicole, for being the best boss I'll probably ever have. You've made me feel so comfortable working not only for you, but with you, right from the start. It's a wonderful feeling to get up everyday  to work with such a fantastic role-model and mentor. You've helped me discover things in myself that I had never seen before, and I've appreciated your constant openness to discussion during both difficult and successful times. You're a super rad chick, a true change agent, and don't you forget it!

Nicole taking a pause from flawlessly wrestling with building materials for a goat shelter

Thank you, Roland, for testing my patience every day. I picked up some quality negotiation tips from you, and loved going on walks with you as well as jumping on the trampoline together. I hope you continue to be sensitive to your experiences and express your emotions strongly. And keep up the awesome hugs, those were great.

Roland "holding the sun" on one of our walks together

Thank you, Ginger, for showing me how lucky I am to have such a supportive group of family and friends. You'll probably never read this, but in case you stumble upon it, I want to let you know that you've been an inspiration for me to not let other people stop me from prioritizing my health, my happiness, and my safety. You've made me think and reflect on the importance of our connections with each other and with the earth, and I am a much more conscious person because of it.

Ginger harvesting for our first CSA (Nicole took the picture, I snagged it off of her Facebook)

Thank you, Bernie, for making dinner almost every night and not looking at me like I'm crazy when I talk about, well, "crazy" stuff. Also, thanks for letting me borrow your car, your bike, your boots, for cooking fantastic gluten-free pancakes on the weekends, and making refreshing shakes in the mornings. I too have enjoyed our silent, spontaneous choreography across the kitchen on weekdays. No expectations for light conversation, just breakfast, lunch-making, and out the door.

Bernie trying to "bite" Sylvia as she goes in for a kiss...taken at Elevated Ice Cream in downtown PT

Thank you, Bo, for making the best pies I've ever tasted. Also thank you for bringing Midge over when you went away. Her unique spirit helped me learn that sometimes it's good to stop and smell the roses (or just stop and look at the person in front of me for a bit). And your gift in the cheese box touched my heart and made me cry.

Roland (being charming as always), Bernie, and Bo at the Rhody Parade.

Bo feeding the doggies in the kitchen (Midge on left, Winnie on right)

Thank you, Tim, for giving me a ride to Sunfield almost every day. And for introducing me to fairies, and raising three lovely children with Andrea (also a super awesome person, mom, and creative crafter). Maybe someday I can join you all at Fairy Congress.

Tim with his adorable daughter, Yemma

Thank you, Monica, for being a teaching inspiration and lovely person in general. That talk we had on the beach in Port Ludlow was really encouraging for me, and your journey to becoming a Spanish teacher and all the juggling that has come in between leaves me speechless. I don't know how you do it so flawlessly.

Monica and me laughing on the beach in Port Ludlow (she has a fantastic laugh, by the way)

And a GIANT thank you goes out to all of my family and friends back home in Ohio. I could go on forever listing all of your names and the incredible things you've done to support me during this journey, but I think you know who you are, and I'll see you soon enough to tell you of your phenomenal brilliance. I love you all so much and can't wait to see you soon.

As I was lying in the wet grass a few nights ago with Sylvia and Winnie, listening to the birds and trying to get "Build Me Up Buttercup" out of my head (I played it earlier that evening on Roland's ukulele, with Sylvia on guitar and Bernie on bass), I was thinking about how happy I am to be at this stage in my life. I don't know exactly where it is I'm going, but I know it's good. I'm looking forward to this next quarter at Antioch, and I'm definitely looking forward to having more misc"Elaine"ous experiences.

Goodbye Spring Co-op of 2013, goodbye beautiful people of Port Townsend, Washington and Sunfield Farm and Waldorf School. Thank you for EVERYTHING.

P.S. I made a video

Oot and Aboot in Canada, Aye?

A couple of weekends ago I finally got to see my dream country - Canada. It's got a little bit of English, a wee bit of French, a whole lotta free healthcare, a couple of "aye"s here and there, and who doesn't like some good 'ole maple syrup? Oh, and the Queen is on all of the currency in British Columbia (which is where I was), specifically Vancouver!

My super sweet awesome-sauce boss gave me Friday and Monday off so that I would have enough time to navigate transportation and take advantage of being so close to the wonderful land of Canada. I can almost smell the maple syrup from the bluff, with Victoria, Canada in sight right across the water (almost as clear as Sarah Palin can see Russia from her house). I  took my first ferry ride ever with Sylvia, Roland, and some family friends (all of whom were going to Seattle for a graduation ceremony). Sylvia took my picture posing as Rose from the Titanic from the front of the ferry. This was our process:

                            

After that shot, our captain alerted us to a pod of killer whales off to the right, and I got to see water coming out of their blowholes! It was - here comes the pun - KILLER!

Anyways, I took my first train ride ever (via Amtrak) all the way to the train station in Vancouver, where I met up with Norah, a friend from school who is staying in the area. We navigated the SkyTrain and various public transportations (sometimes unsuccessfully) to go to Stanley Park (one of the few green spaces in the city), walk through a kooky and overwhelming bookstore, skim through Chinatown, stumble upon a social justice café, and walk up Commercial Drive, where we ate Ethiopian food (which I now highly recommend, by the way). That evening we took about an hour-long SkyTrain ride to take a bus to Fort Langley, where Norah is staying with a family friend. The house was large and homey, with a hard-working mother and several teenage boys who played the piano almost as naturally as taking a breath. I went to sleep with tired feet and a warm bed.

 Feel the kook and overwhelm. It almost doesn't even look real...

Saturday was probably my favorite day of the weekend. We biked into downtown Fort Langley to volunteer in a community garden located in a public park near a school for the arts. The people already there were working on laying brick for a small patio to make a space for garden classes. The garden was immaculate. There were about 40 beds, each of them owned and maintained by a member of the Fort Langley community. The ground was neatly mulched and the beds were weed-free. We chatted and had some laughs with the other kids working on the project. Most of them were students in the garden club at the arts school. We learned how to level the ground before laying the bricks (I believe it's called "skreeting"), and then got to put in about quarter of the bricks in a random arrangement. It was fulfilling work and very inspiring. And they fed us lunch and snacks...gotta love them Canadians, aye?

Afterwards we walked around town and had some coffee and tea before heading back to the house for dinner, which was followed by a walk in the woods with the family dog - definitely my kind of day!

We came across some grazing horses on our walk with the doggie

Sunday, we both agreed, was a bit of a hazy blur, with much confusion figuring out bus timing and SkyTrain stations. We bussed through University of British Columbia's campus to get to the botanical gardens, where we realized we did not have enough time to buy tickets and walk around, since we were meeting Norah's friends in North Vancouver for dinner. But it was alright, we just looked at each other and shrugged with tired smiles, and then took the SeaBus over to the Lonsdale Quay Market for dinner. Her friends were very nice and the food (one of the girls and I had Greek, the others had Indian) was delicious. We then began our journey back to the house in a zombie-like state.

The next day, I started making my way back to Port Townsend at about 8 AM, and completed around 8 PM. Involved in my travels were the following types of transportation: walking, biking, training, bussing, ferrying, and carring (it's a new word, call me Shakespeare). Highlight of the day was getting off my four-hour bus ride to hang out at Pike Place Market in Seattle, where I ate a cup of crab meat and to-die-for gelato while talking to my mom on the phone.

Speaking of the phone, I noticed something that weekend which I was aware of before but not so in-tuned to think about very deeply - everyone, and I mean everyone on public transportation is plugged in. To their phones, iPods, newspapers, Kindles, and what-have-yous. It was interesting to just watch all of them, in another place other than where they were. I am, of course, a culprit of this activity from time to time. It's as if any spare second of doing nothing is forbidden to existence, and it must be occupied with some sort of distraction or the human attention span will explode from lack of something, lack of anything. The reason why I noticed this, ironically, was that I forgot my headphones at my host family's house. I picked up my book from time to time on the way back to Seattle, but I mostly was just intrigued with everyone's consumption around me. I think that just about did me in on my commute back into the States, and I was very happy to come back to open, green space and a breezy walk out to the bluff.

All in all, the weekend was very fun in an adventurous, I'm-still-learning kind of way. It was really nice to see a familiar face from Antioch and to get to talk a little bit about how we've felt about our jobs and the school quarter to come. And although spontaneous jaunts (such as the social justice café and Pike Place Market) are memorable gems in and of themselves, I'm definitely going to try to do some pre-planning before the next trip I go on by myself.

Hello Vancouver, British Columbia. Thank you for your quaint surprises and friendly people, aye?

My "Second" Co-op

Last Monday was the "one month left" marker for my co-op here in Port Townsend, Washington. I can't believe how fast the first two months have gone by, and the list of things I would still like to do is getting longer each day. Three months is a bit of a tricky time increment - there is just enough time for a little homesickness, and just enough time to develop good relationships with the fantastic people around me.

The people whom I've become particularly acquainted with are the members of the genuinely unique but familiar-feeling family I'm living with in the northern end of Port Townsend: Sylvia, Bernie, and Roland. As I've mentioned before, their house is nicely settled on a rural property that is connected to a view overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Living with them, I get a warm bed to sleep in, a home-cooked meal every evening, a bike (and sometimes a car) to borrow when I please, a ride to Sunfield everyday, and an open-minded family to spend time with at the end of a long day.

I do the dishes. And occasionally bake cookies or shortbread. Sound like a deal, or what?

Right from the start I knew I would enjoy staying with this family, not just because of the ample amenities, but also due to the fact that they seemed to have absolutely nothing to hide. Soon after arriving, they shamelessly allowed me to witness Roland pushing Sylvia's buttons with his persistent pestering, Sylvia throwing up her hands and rolling her eyes, and Bernie laughing to himself while shaking his head. It was such a natural and healthy interaction, I couldn't help but crack a smile.

Sylvia and I bonded quickly on conversations at the table and talkative walks with the dogs. I finally had an adult who was interested in my life experience, and she finally had a girl in the house who wasn't Winnie (the dog). Connecting with Sylvia opened the doors to stronger relationships with Bernie and Roland. Bernie will rib me and once "threatened" to make me sleep in the shed, and Roland will give me a hug when I need it and begs me to watch Doctor Who with him almost every day. The house is a good fit for me, and I feel very comfortable here.

But sometimes it's almost too comfortable.

I quickly assigned roles (as one does when far away from home) to the people of the house, and Roland filled the space in my mind as a temporary younger brother. We have fun together jumping on the trampoline outside or tickling each other on my bed. But sometimes I want to scream at Roland for asking me to play cards with him dozens of times while I'm eating breakfast, or sometimes I shoot one of my infamous glares across the dinner table if he demands I pass the salad rather than asking for it politely. It's a natural sibling back-and-forth relationship we have, and Sylvia and Bernie seem to be okay with it.

One time during Thursday Music Night there was a miscommunication about whether or not Roland could have dessert before the adults were finished playing, and it ended with him pushing me aside to storm off to his room. Sylvia came to talk to me afterwards and said, "I don't know how you would like me to talk to you right now - like Roland's older sister or a houseguest?" I asked her what the difference would be. She replied, "I really don't know."

And that's something I've been thinking much about lately, trying to figure out where my "place" is in this house.

I've settled in to treating Roland as a sibling, but only in his relation to me and not to others. For example, I am not tolerant of his common nonchalant, "Whatever" response, and I feel I am able to tell him how disrespectful I think it is and ask him not to say it to me. However, it would be a different story if I told him to stop saying it to his parents, because that's their decision in their relationship with him. I'm not in a position to teach him how to be respectful to other people, but I can draw the line for myself, as I should with anyone who is rude to me.

Nicole jokes that living with Sylvia, Bernie, and Roland is my "second co-op". And I have to agree, I'm learning just as much off of the farm with my new family as I am working with Nicole and other volunteers at Sunfield. Setting boundaries is something that I am working on even in my relationships back home, and living here is offering me an opportunity to practice just that.

Hello second co-op. Thank you for offering me a fantastic family and yet another experience to grow from.



More pictures:

An eggshell Sylvia found in the "hobo camp" near the house

Roland and me playing on the trampoline with Winnie

 Roland and Sylvia dancing in the kitchen

 Tomato house! Woo!

Last Friday Nicole (right), Ginger (left), and I built a shelter for the goats out in their new pasture

Gracie, Sunfield's new Angus-Jersey cow (9 months old)

Last Thursday I went on a hike up Mt. Walker with Roland's class. Sylvia and I walked slowly with a few kids separate from the rest of the group, and we collected these little leaf faces that the other classmates left along the path

Incredible view from the top of Mt. Walker 

Pink rhododendrons, lush fir trees, cloudy mountains, and water 

- all picturesque pieces of the Olympic Peninsula