packing alone bites

Right this moment, I am sitting in Kelley's bed. This will be the last hour or so that I will ever be able to do so. I smell like her fruity body spray- the one you shake up because it is pink stuff and oil. I don't care if she/you knows/know.

As I pack up all my belongings alone things start coming out of the crevices of my dresser, the shirts that I haven't worn in months and the dust behind my bed. As things empty out, I fill up. Isn't that the way it always happens? Somehow, right now, the more things don't make sense, the less I know, the less I have to grip, the more the world and God in general seem to come together. The collide in my brain as the perfect peace- a world where everyone is wondering about something, where everyone is doing the best they can at something, and for what? That is where peace comes from for me: the unity of unknowing.

I leave the country. I pack my things. Too many things and not that much all...all at the same time. I fly on a plane. I return 7 weeks later. This is what I know of my excursion now. Other than that the small details unsuccessfully try to fill in the gaps: rice and beans, rain, photography, children, strangers.....

I am on my way to be alone. Alone in the sense that I have never met any of these people before. I don't speak the language of the majority. I have a mountain to climb and only seven weeks to do it.

Another thought. Good-byes are the worst. It never hits me. I make it not a big deal because I don't know what to do with myself if it is a big deal. Besides, saying good-bye and all the sappy words that come afterward are only fake words for what we will feel when someone is gone. And those things we will eventually feel will only come as we are gone longer and longer. As the place where people you love use to be begin to clear out simply because that person is not filling it in with their face or new memories. The fountain of them has been temporarily turned off and the dry ground begins to ache for water. It begins to ache because it longs to see the blooms of friendship arise once more.

I don't deserve what I have. I don't deserve the support or the opportunity... but I am realizing that saying this takes the joy out of the gift. Thanks friend for that tidbit of wisdom.

This is so cheesy. Full o' cheese just for Lauren =]

I'm leaving. Now, let me go fill my car up with things I will probably come back realizing I don't need. Sheesh.