Blue Dress Yellow Shoes Green Purse

A student I work with just finished reading "The Giver". Though I was in junior high, like so many others when they have to read this classic, I still remember how that book creeped me out. I've always been obsessed with memory, what it means, how to preserve it, how it teaches us, so The Giver sounded like my idea of hell. A society that lets only one person remember pleasure, pain, the feel of snow, the rush of a first kiss... hell.

But I forgot one of the other main ideas in the Society of "The Giver". The concept of choice. It comes up when Jonas, who is the next person chosen to keep all the memories of the community, learns about color. In his Society there is no color. He wishes that "colors still existed so that people could have the pleasure and freedom of choosing between them."

He thinks about it some more, and, since it is still early in the story and he has not quite realized how twisted the Society is, he comes to this conclusion: if people were allowed to choose between colors, they might get so used to making choices that they would want to choose their jobs and their spouses. These are decisions that will have a serious effect on their lives and on the life of the community, and a wrong choice could be disastrous. He then says “We really have to protect people from wrong choices." His community teaches that wrong choices are to be avoided at all costs to protect the Society from disruption and damage. The citizens accept this and allow designated knowledgeable people to make choices for them.

I've made dozens of major decisions in this past year that have had a significant impact on my life and sometimes on those around me. I think I live in a time and country where I'm afforded the opportunity to have more choices than in any era previous, in regards to finance, work, school, love, travel, media, clothes, beliefs... The overwhelming options for my generation, in some ways, can be a hindrance, with so many directions to go it can be difficult to choose just one, and then be happy with it.

But again, a society that left me no option but a grey dress to wear, every day, to save me from the responsibility of continually having to choose and possibly do it wrong... that is hell.

Be there disruption, damage or error, give me a wardrobe filled with every color of the rainbow.

Gold Thread

There are a few messages in my voicemail that I can't delete.

One is from almost two years ago. I remember picking it up for the first time, I was driving home from work, distracted, but my dad's rich voice stilled my frenzied thoughts...

"Hello my daughter! I was just talking to a young lady I met today about you... she is young and unexpectedly pregnant but in a serious relationship- basically the mirror image of what your mother and I went through. Anyway, I was telling her about how I found out about true love, when I saw my daughter for the first time. I love you, Corinne."

There's another message I keep, it came the day after he found out about my major breakup with my longtime boyfriend...

"I just called to say i love you, I called to say I've been praying for you. Today is a great day Corinne, it's a day the Lord has made, I love you my daughter, keep strong."

The third one from him that I can't delete, that came just a couple weeks after the second one, completely summarizes the message he's been sending me, without end, unconditionally, my entire life...

"Just called to say I love ya, thought I'd call you and see how you're doing, you rock, my daughter, you're young and beautiful and successful and you've got the whole world by the tail. I love you."

Twenty-seven years ago today my dad celebrated his twenty-second birthday. A month later, I was born. As young as he was when he became a father, as much as he's gone through since, he's made his love and admiration for me so evident, so constant, that it's become part of my narrative of how I've become a confident young woman, even when I haven't displayed the qualities that he's always used to describe me.

He is not perfect, and neither am I. But I'm one of the lucky girls, I know.


"There's something like a line of gold thread running through a man's words when he talks to his daughter, and gradually over the years it gets to be long enough for you to pick up in your hands and weave into a cloth that feels like love itself."
~John Gregory Brown, Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery, 1994


*a daddy/daughter-made sandcastle, 08/2008

blaise

Since I first met this quote so many years ago in Rhetoric class I have never forgotten it...

"The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing."
-Blaise Pascal

photographic friday

i had one of those friday nights where not much was planned, and i didn't feel anxious about having not much to do because i knew saturday was going to be good and full. and so i let the evening stretch out, taking as much time as i felt like taking to walk around downtown after work, go for a run, make dinner...

and the run went on endlessly because i couldn't bring myself to go inside. the air was warm and the fragrance of the sea was strong. i was playing sigur ros, and i don't know why i've never run to that music before but its certainly a great thing to do. and then the sunset went on forever. the clouds were tangled throughout the sky, fog spread around the horizon, and the purple and orange and golds would change and grow and move to other spots and back again. on the hill of city college overlooking the ocean with that music and that sky, it was downright ethereal.



there is a spot at city college that i love to stand at in the middle of workouts, it has stones planted in the grass to sit on, a fountain, and quotes on metal pieces set into the ground. i love this quote below, it seems to prove true again and again, and i think of it whenever something seems to difficult to achieve.



so then i came home from my run, and checked the mail. best mailday ever... a postcard from j in sweden, another from my sister in uganda, and a small package and card from my mom because she's about to leave for prague! happy friday to me!

the card from my mom is from a line of cards that highlight unique words from dying languages.
this word is from the native american huron language, and it means, "Stay in Touch With Your Dreams."




thank you mom, i am. :)

maybe not again for awhile

i think it's kind of like christmas.
most everyone loves it, we look forward to it all year long, and there is always something to say to someone in coming or going...
"viva la fiesta!"

the atmosphere, the spirit, the vibe of the town is so celebratory. the buzz is everywhere, even days beforehand. parks and venues all around town prepare for the part they will play in the five day party. businesses downtown post signs in their windows the weeks beforehand giving notice that they will close by noon that friday for the parade. and the people i celebrate with, they get ready by making sure they have at least one fun colorful outfit to wear out during the week, they pull cash out so they can buy churros to their hearts' content, and they coordinate with friends as to just where they will meet up to watch the parade, catch the flamenco dancing, or enjoy the nighttime craziness.

fiesta is one of the best times of year in santa barbara.

this year was one of the most incredible ones yet. each fiesta stands out for particular moments... last year had highlights like overlooking the carnival lights while enjoying churros on a hillside with my mom, the year before that was most memorable for the free mat kearney concert under the stars that turned into a spontaneous dance party once a dj got on the stage afterwards, with all the twenty-somethings who'd come for the concert prancing around the dancefloor in goofy ways that would not be seen in indochine.

this year will be marked by the collision of so many dozens of friends from all over on thursday night at dargans and saturday night at blush. friends from way back, friends from now, all reunited serendipitously on this weekend of all sb weekends. i will also most certainly remember how we ended up watching the parade next to the most amazing family of goodtimers ever, who'd drawn circles in the street to take bets on where the horses would do their business, who had a keg out in broad daylight, and who cheerfully ran to buy trays and trays of confetti eggs to battle with the children who were pelting them from an office window above with the same. and when the day comes that i am away from santa barbara on this first weekend in august, like i haven't been in 7 years, i will remember how when you look around during those five days, as i most noticed this year, you see spontaneous dance parties to mariachi bands, strangers cracking eggs over other strangers and everyone laughing, boyfriends and girlfriends sharing their churros with each other as they sway to the cover bands that play in the plaza, every girl with a flower in their hair, and the dancefloors everywhere so packed while thousands line the streets, all there because of a desire to be a part of that VIVA spirit.

i'm not sure, but fiesta might have been so good to me this year because it knows i may not be around for it again next time...

july bride

and to cap off july, a fabulous wedding... a former roommate tied the knot, and we celebrated the day with raspberry cocktails, croquet, swing dancing, more dancing, nonstop laughing and stolen slices of wedding cake.

two years today

happy birthday to outnumber the sand. this page is two years old today...


i started a weblog because i wanted to get my thoughts down about people and how they work, to practice my writing in general, to have somewhere to occasionally record travel memories, and to share a little bit of life happenings. i am happy to say that i feel satisfied with what i've done so far. i didn't plan for this month of daily photos to coincide with this anniversary, but i think it's quite perfect, i've truly become so grateful this past month for the people and places in my life, and i'm glad this page helped me get there. and i love having a place to type things out, review, revise, and publish every so often. i'm challenged by the fact that this is public and available to any who stumbles across it, found it on my facebook when i used to have it linked there, or have had it passed along to them. family, friends and others can and do read it, and it will always be an ongoing process for me to decide how much i want to share about where life takes me. at the beginning i didn't intend to share as much of what is going on in my own life currently as much as i have. sometimes i want to share it all. then i think, "maybe i will be embarrassed later. maybe they won't agree with how i portrayed them. maybe they will be hurt. maybe they will be put off. maybe they will know too much and stalk me. maybe they will think i'm a bad/annoying/emo family member, friend, girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, stranger, prospective employee, etc."

but then i think "maybe i will get to look back at this in ten, fifteen, or twenty years and have this wonderful journey recorded. maybe i will still remember what it was like to be in my twenties and though i try to keep my entries subtle and inexplicit, i'll be able to read between my own lines and recall all the sheer joy, the wondering, the heartbreak, the hopefulness, the love, the learning... maybe it will show me how i've grown. maybe someone i care about will read it and understand me better for it. maybe putting down my goals and plans will keep me accountable. maybe it will be for someone else what several blogs are for me, something i get excited about when there's a new entry, for i get to be drawn in momentarily to the ongoing novel of someone's real actual lovely life. maybe this is becoming just that: a novel, written in short bits, of the story of my life... the collection of yearly reviews, photos, flashbacks, encounters, thoughts, feelings, plans... it is the "adventures of corinne."

my life is wonderful and an adventure indeed. and i wholeheartedly believe that the best and most incredible is yet to come.