Six.

There are six reasons I am happy today:

1) I got up my gumption and still went to my masters program info session despite
- stinky armpits
- no parking which led to stinkier armpits
- running very, very late
- feeling very, very hopeless
- insane amounts of social anxiety
I got halfway home, after talking myself out of it - and then turned back around, double parked and walked in 45 minutes late like I knew what was what. And, you know what? It was worth it... because....

2) I got my transcript re-evaluated and now I'm eligible to apply for the alternative program I wanted!

3) AND I found out that the deadline for the program I want is a month and 15 days later than the other deadline

4) The weather is getting better - supposed to be 50 degrees outside in the next few days!

5) I am so lucky to be in love with the most amazing partner. Without C-Roll, I wouldn't have turned around. Not even a little.

6) 9 credits turned to six, just like that... I'm beginning to believe....

and it's a wonderful feeling.

Reclaimed.

Today, Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States of America.

Lately, I have been thinking about sustainability and community. I think it is all the promise of change in the air - suddenly, buying organic isn't enough - I want to do it in a way that supports my community. Not purchasing new isn't enough, I want to create with my own hands. I want to make do, to patch the tire, to embrace things like canning and jarring and darning of socks.

I want to reclaim all the damaged things, used and thrown away.
Perhaps because I feel as though my country has finally been reclaimed.

Maybe my idealism could be usable with a little wood glue and a coat of varnish. Maybe my patriotism could be darned with a needle and thread, fixing the hole I left in the heel of America's sock. They will never be perfect again, these things, but there is nothing more beautiful than the hard-won character of something of value, glued and fixed.

Wishville, USA

I am living in Wishville right now. It's a place I go to in my head - there is a door in, but no door out. In Wishville, I am engaged in active daydreaming. I usually go there when I'm in front of the computer, making up alternate scenarios for my reality through research and endless tangential googling.

Sometimes, Wishville is about furniture or my immediate surroundings. Others, it's about a more disciplined yoga-ish meditation-filled lifestyle. Sometimes I'm an astrologer in Wishville. Sometimes, I'm a world traveler and adventurer extraordinaire.

Today, my Wishville is about becoming a teacher. Getting rid of the three credits between me and imminent career change. Figuring out the financial aid I'll need to make it happen.

Today, instead of engaging in my life of the present, I'm living inside the idea of "could."

Rocinante

My parents have a wooden statue. The skinny legs of Don Quixote mesmerized me as a child. His craggy face was explored by my fingers as they grew. I studied the dark wood and its grain in the carving, feeling the smooth curves of his coat and pantaloons, wondering how you make something like that from a block of wood. The statue always seemed so strong, but delicate.

My father, who was hardened and shaped by decades in the military, wasn't always the way I knew him. Once, he wanted to be a poet, or a forester in Oregon. Once, he was a writer and a dreamer. Once, he was an optimist, a writer of love letters. Once, he was a philosopher king. Once, he sang "The Impossible Dream" in the shower, getting ready to meet my mother on a date.

Once, he was Don Quixote, adventurer, knight-errant, dreamer and hero.

We are different people, my father and me. Life shaped him in ways that I will still not accept for myself. But, that statue reminds me of him in his youth, in what I envision as his purest state.

C's parents had a similar statue in their home, when he was growing up. When I came to his house for the first time, I saw that he had the same framed print of Picasso's Don Quixote as I had grown up with (in addition to the statue). They played the soundtrack to Man of La Mancha on their turntable constantly - as did my father and mother.

C and I are buying a 34 foot sailboat. We will hopefully close by the end of the month. We dream of sailing together all over this blue earth. This purchase is the beginning of making that dream a reality.

The boat is not perfect. It is old. But, to our eyes, it is beautiful. It is Rocinante, the skinny nag, riding to glory - helping us tilt at windmills. As we keep believing in beauty. Believing in honor. Believing in dreams.