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In the days before jungle gyms and lunchboxes and math, I made bread with Mother. She possessed secrets of the sort only entrusted to Mothers and would add and mix and coax the flour and water and sugar and yeast into delightful doughy harmony. I was her capable assistant, grabbing and passing whatever my tiny arms could reach, or tramping around the kitchen when I got bored. Trust me, I was indispensable.
When it came time to knead, two thumbprints formed eyes and a long fold formed a mouth, and the ball of dough became a friend. Tip-toed on a stool so I could peer above the floured counter, he and I bantered back and forth before he was rolled up, laid out, and reformed. I think his name was usually George. George was destined for a fiery end, but even at that young age my mind had enough foresight not to mourn his passing as he slid into the oven. He was meant for greater things, and he and I would meet again on another weekend afternoon. During his metamorphoses I built castles in the gravel of our driveway, fought orcs and goblins on the hill of our side yard, and sneakily scaled the side of our porch on secret missions with secret agendas, but I never strayed far from the kitchen door while the oven was on; wander away and the aroma would go woefully unappreciated. And when Mother finally called, I would run in for a slice of the nutty brown loaf, soft and warm and buttered. Ambrosia.
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I’m in transition.
This isn’t a new thing for me or my peers or, dare I say it, for anybody. Our lives aren’t composed of neat narrative arcs; we exist, rather, in a persistent state of constant, inescapable flux. We can strive for stability—I certainly do—but stable and static are not the same thing. To demonstrate the ubiquity of this situation, place yourself, for a moment, in the diamond-soled shoes of the Cullinan Diamond. Weighing in at over 3,000 carats, you are the largest known specimen of the hardest Earthly substance. It took over a billion years for the lithospheric inferno to forge you and force you through a hundred miles of magma and bedrock to the surface. After such a stressful and monumental journey, you’d be forgiven for taking a knee for a few billion more, wiping the sweat from your scintillating brow, and thanking the stars that your trials were at an end—except, of course, that your transformation wasn’t done. Part 1
Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Sunday, June 18 7:00 AM: Do you think alarms ever get fed up with doing the same thing every day? Does it fulfill some sense of purpose? Whatever the answer, mine still likes me enough to wake me up, for which I am grateful. I prepare to jog. 7:03 AM: Roomie sleeps in again. Ah well. I’ve got my podcasts to keep me company. 7:05 AM: One last time I pound the pavement. The air is cool and perfectly humid. 7:09 AM: You know, I think I’m finally getting back into this ‘running’ thing. 7:13 AM: As I cross the final bridge, I decide to do an extra little loop. I’m feelin’ good about this. 7:16 AM: See? That was fine. Go you. You get some chocolate later. One last time I push and pull myself up to complete my morning workout. 7:23 AM: Shower. 7:31 AM: Breakfast. The last of my greens, the bottom of my yogurt, my only remaining egg. 7:50 AM: I return to my room and pack up my things. Today’s schedule is a tad more accelerated than the rest of the weekend. I wanna get this morning going. 8:18 AM: Okay, I think that’s everything. I double-check and triple-check, because I’d rather not forget my keys or laptop in North Carolina. Love you, NC, but I don’t plan on returning anytime soon. Part 1
Part 2 Part 3 Saturday, June 17 7:00 AM: My phone wakes up, and yells at me to put it back to sleep. I groggily oblige it. I do not offer myself the same courtesy, instead donning my running gear. 7:06 AM: After a stop by the bathroom and the water fountain, once more I head to the top of the hill for my run. My roommate opted to stay in bed today. I can’t exactly blame him. 7:08 AM: Shush, legs. You did this yesterday and you were fine. You’ll be okay. 7:11 AM: You’ll be fine. Shush. Shuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuush. 7:17 AM: Another strong finish across the bridge. I do few sets of bodyweight shenanigans, paying no mind to the cargo-shorted, Birkenstocked Quakers often found at this time of morning. 7:30 AM: I feel less sticky than yesterday (though I’ll always be tacky). Still, a shower is undoubtedly warranted. It’s marvelous. 7:36 AM: And once more, over to the SAYF dorm for breakfast. It’s the same fare as yesterday; mixed greens, yogurt and oats and banana, and a hardboiled egg (Mom cooked and brought the eggs for me, as well as a little Ziploc bag with some salt; I love her). My food remains uneaten by the ravenous teens. I count it a small miracle. 7:55 AM: I sling my pack over my shoulder and wander down to the main building. I still have hours before the morning starts (today is much the same as yesterday; variations on a theme), but I have some work I can do. #productive Part 1
Part 2 Friday, June 16 7:00 AM: Phone does the ding-a-ling thing. I chase the leftover sleep from my eyes, slide into shorts and a tank top, and don my running shoes. 7:03 AM: My roommate follows suit. He’s gonna be my buddy this morning. 7:12 AM: After some short stretches and warm-ups, we hit the pavement. 7:13 AM: Mountains are hard. 7:16 AM: Hills do nasty things to your calves. Ergh. 7:19 AM: We pull a strong finish across the bridge and commence with exercises. Yoga for him, bodyweight shenanigans for me. 7:27 AM: My skin’s tacky. Ick. I take a shower. 7:40 AM: It’s my favorite time: breakfast time. I saunter over to the SAYF dorm, munch some greens, mix a little parfait, and roll out a hardboiled egg. I eat it outside. The morning is peaceful. 7:58 AM: My morning activities don’t start for a couple hours. I wander to the main building and check Facebook, work on some creative projects, and see if anybody I know wanders by. 8:25 AM: Nobody has wandered by and I’m still tired; 9 hours of sleep apparently wasn’t enough to make up for my marathon the last two days. 8:31 AM: I set a timer and lay down for a quick nap. 9:31 AM: Ding-a-ling. I rouse myself. Better. Much better. Continued from Dawn of the First Day
Thursday, June 15 8:03 AM: The car re-arrives at Warren Wilson, for good this time. Registration doesn’t open for a couple hours; we settle in the student lounge. Dad and I share some YouTube. 8:42 AM: Mom and Dad leave to do important things. I, too, do important things—I lay down and close my eyes, utilizing the super-comfiness of the lounge couches (a quality I like to call nap-titude). 9:48 AM: I rouse myself and stumble to the registration table; it’s open now. Key—received. Keycard—acquired. Perfect. I’m here for SAYMA, the annual gathering of the Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting Association. It’s a four-day Quaker convention. I’ve written before about my time with SAYF; this is its parent organization. My little brother is graduating from SAYF this year, and there’s a strong tradition of the Young Adult Friends (YAFs; we Quakers love our acronyms) welcoming the graduates into our fold. It matters that I’m here, to him and to me, especially since I was part of the same community. 10:02 AM: Now that I can get into the YAF dorm, I lug my suitcase and backpack and pillow and breakfast into my room. My roommate has already set up camp on one bed—turns out he was a few years behind me in SAYF. He’s not there right now, but I make a mental note. I claim the other bunk and unpack. Wednesday, June 14
5:30 AM: My phone emits a jocular jingle, rousing me from slumber. I plant my feet on the floor and get with the business of going to work. 5:36 AM: Pants belted. Shirt on. Teeth brushed. Keys and wallet—check, check. I lock the door on my way out. The sun is already up. When did that become a thing this early? 5:45 AM: I arrive at work. I’m the first one there (as always); my sense of discipline shimmies proudly. My co-worker arrives a bit later. 8:13 AM: Our mid-shift support rolls in. She only works until 2. I’m not bitter. I’m not bitter at all. 9:15 AM: Mr. Dubious-Diet orders his regular salad, the one with all the toppings and quadruple the rolls. Hgggggggggggggh. It’s 9:15 in the morning. Please don’t make me do this yet. Please don’t make me do this at all. 2:08 PM: The closers arrive and our mid-shift heads out. I have two hours left at work, and miles after that before I sleep. It’s gonna be a looooooooooooooong day. I’ve been really busy this month, between Illyria and a family visit and working more than usual, so I don’t have a full blog post. But, loyal readers, y’all still deserve something. Here are some moments and memories that gave me life this month.
There are more moments that passed too quickly to register or were steamrolled by subsequent sorrows. The more I focus on picking out bright spots in the daily drivel, though, the more I see. Sometimes it seems I live in a fractal of joys. That sense of wonderment, though, is twinned by an insidious worry that I'm fooling myself into complacency. Perhaps finding solace in frozen berries with off-brand whipped cream is trite. Maybe I am doomed to eternal contentment, my full potential never realized. But ya know, there are far worse fates. I’d rather be at peace with my lesser things than pace my penthouse floor at night. I’m young, I’m fit, I’ve got pep in my step and a brand new v-neck. Things will only get better from here. Right. Okay. Here we go. Just a heads up, this is gonna be a different kind of post. Most of my posts are narrative, stories of past exploits to give y’all a fuller picture of me as an artist and human being. This… this one is different. See, ever since Trump started taking actions as president I’ve felt this twisting inside me as his administration takes aim at one minority population after another. During the past eight years I could forgive myself for letting marginalized peoples lead the charge for their own liberation and waving my liberal pom-poms from the sidelines, confident that our nation was headed in the right direction, that strides would be made. Suffice to say, that doesn’t cut it for me anymore. I apologize in advance for the impending privilege whinge. There’s a lot on my mind.
Doug’s face at that moment twisted into an expression of a very particular fear. It wasn’t the creeping dread awakened by a shadow at the door, nor the oppressive settling of a weighty comprehension, nor the steeling of the gut that precedes a fated appointment. It was the panic felt when, in the space of a breath, your confident footing slips and you suddenly speed downhill towards icy waters. In that short spell when you see control still within your reach, before you realize that you perceive only its afterimage and that it has, in fact, already left the state, you too would grimace in an involuntary and ineffectual attempt to maintain your poise. Not unlike poor Douglas.
That’s not a metaphor—Doug really was about to fall chest-first into a lake. Well, it is a metaphor, but I’ll come back to that. First, the story of how we got to that point. As I’m writing this morning, sipping my coffee with Beirut in my ears, the Windy City is living up to its moniker. I always feel reenergized when the weather cools and I break out my fall attire. I want to wander feeling the crisp breeze on my cheeks, seeing the trees glow with their own autumn wardrobe, gazing over the steely waters of Lake Michigan whipped into choppy white-capped waves. I want to sit inside with warm muffins and tea and blankets and watch the wind blow. It’s a time for friends, for love and for loved ones, when community comes together to prepare for the winter months. And as I’m writing this morning, my mind wanders through the annals of memory to a place and people that are forever connected with feelings of intimacy and f(F)riendship.
It’s time for me to start thinking about next steps. Past time, probably, but there were other variables that needed to settle into place before I could make meaningful progress. Suffice to say, they have settled, and now I turn my eye to…what? Where do I go from here? For the first time in my life, I am being truly cut free. Even after I graduated, I stuck around my alma mater for a year working. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adore my job and I have learned so much during this year. But now this year is up, and it’s time for me to move on. Move on where, you might ask? Ain’t that the million-dollar question.
Today’s story is a tale of epic proportions, a journey fit for the storybooks. In England, they tell tales of mysterious garments known as ‘movement trousers.’ For centuries cryptoclothologists have debated the true nature of these secret slacks. When I studied abroad in London, I got a chance to try and pierce the shroud of secrecy. My dance teacher required us to find a pair of these clandestine chinos, and I couldn’t wait to take my shot. Armed with good weather on a Saturday morning, I set out on a quest for the ages.
Happy New Year! To welcome in 2016, I decided to do a look back at the days of the previous year. It was a red-letter year for me in a lot of ways—below are some of the highlights of my 2015.
Of all my blog posts, this may be the one that strikes closest to my soul. Prepare yourself for a heavy dose of Essence of Ian.
We begin with an anecdote, taken from my time in London. I went with my friend Abby on a bus tour to Stonehenge and Bath, and to pass the time I started making jokes. For whatever reason (I’m sure it made sense contextually), they were all puns about hair. This went on for about 15 minutes. Nonstop. For a quarter of an hour, nary a sentence left my lips that was not punishment (or should I say--bunishment) for my eternally sweet and suffering friend. But no matter how much pain and existential regret my jokes caused, I found myself powerless to stop. I punned to-and-afro until we arrived. I still get upbraided about it. This month I deal not with the past, but with the present. I turn my eye from the annals of years gone by and to the story being written as we watch. Last week, I did something I’d never done before. For the first time in my life, I became truly independent. I have a real-person job, a real-person apartment, real-person bills, and all the other boons and beestings that come with being a real person. And boy, has it been a week.
Warning. This post contains bugs.
There are several reasons I don't live in Australia. It's far away, it would be expensive to move, and I don't know anyone. But one reason far outweighs all others, a fear more sinister and primal than any other: I'm scared of the Outback's huge spiders. Something about the environment Down Under breeds multi-legged monstrosities out of a Godzilla film. Spiders. in Australia fall into three general categories: big, huge, and downright Brobdingnagian. I know I don't like big spiders because I've had experience with big spiders. This is the story of the most memorable. This story is dredged from the depths of my memory, and is one of my favorites about myself. I don't particularly remember it happening, but it's been corroborated enough times for me to believe it. It's the kind of story you can't make up.
Way back when I was but a wee young lad, only five or six, my brother tried to teach me math. Ben is two and a half years older than me, and for years I thought he was the academic bees knees. Heck, I still think he's the academic bee's knees, especially when it comes to math. He majored in math. He's a math wizard. He's positively mathemagical, and has always been so. I was moderately mathematically inclined, but never even approached his precociousness. Ben's gift for navigating the exact and exacting work of complex mathematical theory boggles me. And like his craft, he is a very precise individual. So this was the person trying to teach elementary math to his little brother with the attitude and energy level of a coke-addled bumblebee. As I approach the end of my collegiate career—I graduate with honors in Theatre from Grinnell in just over two weeks—I want to look back at my time here. Grinnell has given me soooooooo frickin’ much. I learned to get out of my own way, to make a plan of action when I’m in unfamiliar waters, to be more sympathetic and empathetic while retaining a sense of objectivity, and as I go out into the world I feel prepared for whatever might come my way.
But more than that, Grinnell has given me some of the greatest friends I will ever have. They are engaging, kind, so talented, so driven, and just as weird as I am if not more so. They are the ones who have truly made my Grinnell experience as rewarding as it has been. So here’s to you, friends, and to old times. Though our paths may stray, we are all just parts of the same whole and I know that when (not if) we reunite we will complete each other once more. It was England, 2014, just as the new flower buds were beginning to come in. I was immersed in my study abroad program (the London Dramatic Academy, a semester-long conservatory) and the days were long and hard. Soon, though, we had the promise of a short reprieve—spring break. For a week, we would be free. Now, while my fellow actors quickly planned trips to the big cities of Europe—Rome, Paris, Copenhagen, and more—I felt myself pulled towards a different route. I wanted to get out of the metropolitan hustle and bustle, to see the English countryside, experience English country culture, and just stop moving for a while.
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