Crash and Grab vol. 2 | Returning Home and Coming Back to Un-Home

From: Into the Woods 

The Musical

There are Giants in the sky!
There are big tall terrible Giants
in the sky!

When you’re way up high
And you look below
At the world you left
And the things you know,
Little more than a glance
Is enough to show
You just how small you are.

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Eastern Washington (the desert) from above, flying back to Alaska

…But I’m glad that I went home because it helped me realize something: I really love being in Alaska.

I really enjoy my job, in spite of super early mornings, and in spite of how I’m not really making much money, well: I missed it while I was gone. I felt like my freedom was pulled from me all of a sudden and I had a rare glimpse of that miserably slow winter in Atlanta that I left behind to come here. It was the best decision I could have made, at shaky risk and a pretty penny.

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The clouds were breathtakingly majestic, like they were showing off for the passengers. I felt like I could see the end of the globe and the beginning of the atmosphere that kisses the other planets and a world I will never know and a universe I will certainly never understand, and most of all: can never predict.

When you’re way up high
And you’re on your own
In a world like none
That you’ve ever known,
Where the sky is lead
And the earth is stone,

You’re free, to do
Whatever pleases you,
Exploring things you’d never dare
‘Cause you don’t care,
When suddenly there’s

A big tall terrible Giant at the door,
A big tall terrible lady Giant
sweeping the floor.
And she gives you food
And she gives you rest
And she draws you close
To her Giant breast,
And you know things now
that you never knew before,

 

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“This looked like the sun’s shadow, but the sun doesn’t have a shadow, silly” I thought to myself.

When I lived in Seattle, I used to see Mt. Rainier when the sky was clear and the weather was behaving.

Locals would say “Rainier is out” because it announced itself each time, and each time it was worth noticing.

The pictures don’t capture the majesty of these clouds flooding the top of this mountain peeking through.

The year was 23, I was a miserably depressed human. Let me say that differently: I was miserable and I was depressed. I was also anxious and lost and sad and in anguish. I don’t need to get into it all now, but I remember the terrain of Seattle and it felt like it represented a little bit of everything I went through that year: glorious sunshine, dreary rain, miserable gray and dark, dark days, kissed mountains and softened by green at every turn: The Emerald City.

Passing by this mountain again, flying to another semi-foreign frontier, Alaska, I still have the same questions I had the first time I saw it. But now, I am looking at the mountain from a different perspective: simply passing by, not wallowing at ground level, searching for a sign, but meandering past the same questions and doubts and looking on in awe, and eventually, passing by.

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Approaching Mt. Rainier

 

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Mt. Rainier in all it’s majesty, cresting the clouds.

 

 

Excerpts from that lonely year near the mountain:

“Every morning, I wake up in fear, essentially, asking myself “what if you don’t amount to what you want to do?”

Moving to a new place in this stage of my life has made parts of who I am yell loudly and more clearly than if I was in a familiar place.

Maybe I just won’t ever be happy.”

-December 14, 2009

“For whatever reason, I have it in my mind that although I am obviously miserable right now, it is more right than being un-miserable. Who knows if that is true or not but it’s how I see it at the moment. I think this is based on my belief that I am facing the music about myself, about what I want, what I see, everything. And if I am simply happy or carefree, does this mean I am living in oblivion about my problems? Or maybe it is the exact opposite, maybe for me, being miserable is the easy option and actually being happy is the accomplishment. Maybe accomplishing being happy will require the most strength out of me.

Humans were not made for isolation. It seems to me that other humans absorb the sound.”

-January 13, 2010

What is keeping me here? I have to figure this out. Anger seems to be my go-to emotion. I think every day about all of the stuff I have to do, like making decisions about my faith, future, career, budget, you name it, and instead of making any head-way, I get angry that I have to make these decisions on my own and eventually stop thinking about it.

-January 24, 2010

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Only just when you’ve made
A friend and all,
And you know she’s big
But you don’t feel small,
Someone bigger than her
Comes along the hall
To swallow you for lunch.

And you heart is lead
And your stomach stone
And you’re really scared
Being all alone…

And it’s then that you miss
All the things you’ve known
And the world you’ve left
And the little you own-

The fun is done.
You steal what you can and run.
And you scramble down
And you look below,
And the world you know
Begins to grow:

The roof, the house, and your Mother at the door.
The roof, the house and the world you never thought to explore.
And you think of all of the things you’ve seen,
And you wish that you could live in between,
And you’re back again,
Only different than before,
After the sky.

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As my friends commit their lives and their futures to their soulmates, my motor seems to be on idle, in gray and doubt. They have the confidence and wherewithal to commit their lives to a person, I can’t even keep my ownership commitment to my cat. I don’t know- my friends aren’t getting married so I can think about how I’m not. It’s not actually about me, come to find out, but I didn’t expect to be this person when I turned 30.

I don’t know what I expected, but I knew I loved babies and dream of being a bride and meeting the man of my dreams. I didn’t expect that a cornucopia of my friends, from high school, college, from BIRTH, for find their way to that trail and I would be the single one. The Single One.

But I flew over Mt. Rainier and it looked so beautiful, but when I lived in Seattle I was too sad and too miserable to notice.

There’s beauty around me that I can appreciate that I know I wouldn’t be seeing if I were not in Alaska, doing this thang.

Now I need to just open my eyes and breathe it in! Mountains, creeks, tourists- oh my!

Maybe the mountain is the same, but the view is totally different.

There are Giants in the sky!
There are big tall terrible awesome scary wonderful
Giants in the sky!

With quiet gratitude..

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