God, I hope these reach you. I miss you dearly.
I write to you from the midst of a Labor Day that really could not have come soon enough. Don't get me wrong (something that I can never actually remember you doing). School is cooler than wearing pants in public places. But it's nice to get to breathe after a week of class-shuffling, relationship drama (mine and that of the people who surround me–it's a problem) and other various and sundry excitements.
I dressed as a workout-warrior princess for my first Zumba class of the semester–I even had this psychedelic headband around my forehead like a crazy circlet (kind of like this). The studio stereo buzzed like it always does, the microphone broke (hell yeah–I love having an excuse to just yell things at my participants and not wear the cumbersome microphone junk), and everyone there seemed to have a lot of fun. It kind of made me remember why I loved my job last semester. I'm still not sure if I want to (and if I even can) keep it up this semester. Every day that is one of my first thoughts waking up: "Oh God, I have to teach that class on Thursday." Not good.
I found a (definitely identifiable) blue feather on my regular running route at the beginning of this week. I put it in my shoe (because that's how normal people carry things they like) and proceeded to have one of the best runs I've ever had. So... I might be developing certain superstitions about this feather. And I could also be pretending that it's the Roc's Feather from Zelda: Oracle of the Ages. But let's pretend that I'm not that dorky, okay? Excellent. I knew you'd understand. :)
Ready for this? I auditioned for a dance group on campus. And I'm in. It's a modern group with technique classes every Sunday night. One of my good friends from Governor's School kind of recruited me to go to the audition. I was nervous and excited before doing it (after all, its been almost exactly a year since I last took a class/danced), but now I'm pretty much down to the straight excitement side of things. I am fully prepared to surrender to the fact that dance will always be a defining force in my life if such an admission will let me take it up again. If I could hug dance, I feel like I would right now for having missed it so much.
On Thursday, my French conversation class went to the awesome local museum (free entry for students–hell yeah) and took a guided tour in French. At the end of class we broke into groups and picked paintings to interpret (en français, bien sur). My group is going to present on this Cubist painting called Composition by Albert Gleizes. I've enjoyed time spent in foreign museums before, but this class (the best meeting we've had all semester in that class, à mon humble avis) made me realize that I just have this weird thing for discussing art in foreign languages. Does that make sense? Art is great, and foreign languages are great (obviously I would think that). But combining the two gives you a chance to talk in a range of technical and abstract terms that one doesn't often have occasion to use in foreign languages, and I feel like the limitations and liberations of one's foreign vocabulary force you to push harder on the art. It's as satisfying for my brain as a really rigorous workout is for my body.
As great as school has been, I feel glad to step away for a minute. The first little stretch has been a lot of grappling–all those things that are in the air as you get to school had to come down, and it took a little wrestling for me to finish the job. So this weekend my sis and I went up to the mountains with my parents, visiting my Oma and Opa at Lake Cherokee in the Tennessee Smokies. I used to beg my parents to go here all the time ("hey mom, when are we going back to paradise?" because that's what I called it when I was 8-12 years old). It is still a haven.
The night we arrived, I was so beat that I had to go to bed almost immediately (it was only about nine at night). But today was full. Teaching the two new puppies (Nick and Nora) that my Oma and Opa have about how to walk on a leash, baking some experimental pies (one was almost a disaster but I managed to turn it totally around just before the final baking happened), racing a thunderstorm in a swim to/from the closest island, going for a run (I kind of danced half of it, and I kept getting distracted by pretty sights), climbing high into the boughs of a tree to look over the roof of the house at the lake, dancing on the dock in the shadow of an evening cloud-mass, attempting acrobatics on the old childhood swing that hangs from a large old tree, and finishing the night surrounded by family and the smells of after-dinner coffee. Tomorrow means skinny dipping at six in the morning and a hopefully-as-strenuous-as-promised hike to a waterfall not too far from here. Which reminds me: I ought to go to sleep soon.
Miss you, babe.
Your adoring friend,
Blue
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