The tearful goodbye

I haven't really said the goodbye yet. That said, this won't be the last post on this blog, even though I've been in Alaska for a week now. Jersey's still got a hold on me, and I'm resisting letting go completely for fear that I will forget things. I definitely never believed that Newark could make me feel this way. Ever. At all. I've still got things to process, stories to tell.

I didn't sleep the night before I left. I was (of course) packing all my shit very frantically, writing a letter to the JV that will be living in my room, writing a letter to a coworker to try to say goodbye, crying, drinking iced coffee, all the while listening to the radio to all the songs that had unintentionally made me really like that hiphop/rap/pop blend during the year. (Jason Derulo, this is you, haha).

I was remembering things as I came across receipts: St. Patrick's Day night at Cryan's in South Orange, numerous trips to Carvels, meeting Megan at Subway or lunch, my airline ticket to come home for Christmas, every evidence of my struggles there made the tears flow more as I realized that not only had I survived all those things, but that I came out knowing more and able to love more.

How could I have known that that $79 dollars spent for, among other things, every one of the 5 containers of poppyseeds at Eden Gourmet taught me that if I can make Polish Christmas by myself, that home is where the Wiligia is? Would I have ever guessed that I would have the courage to walk into New York city time after time, alone, late at night to see some of the best concerts ever? Who was going to tell me that I would make an incredible friend who I shared drinks, jokes, and fat sandwiches with, only to have him suddenly never speak to me again, with no reason why?

Every memory that washes over me - some I'm glad are just memories. Some make me want to be back in Newark so I can correct things, clarify things, ask more questions, understand the answers, respond differently.

Before I had even left Newark, I was scheming ways to get back there - North Jersey. Hah! It seems now, and seemed then, so laughable. I spent so much of my year there trying to get away from it all, and now, I was itching to return - even before I had left. But Newark weaseled its way into my heart, ripping it open that last night as I taped up boxes of my things.

My last day at Georgia King Village and Bradley Court was two days before. I bought cookies for the kids as a going away treat (maybe to staunch my own guilt, I'll admit it). And at both places, as I said goodbye, hugged every child, prayed to God that they would grow up to be healthy, not get caught up into drugs or gangs, that they would get half the chances that I did in my little suburban town, that they would grow up into the beautiful personalities that I saw every Tuesday and Wednesday. I got into the van with my Junior Rangers. I turned on the radio, and at both places, this is what was playing:

Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars
I could really use a wish right now, wish right now, wish right now

Jesus, what an appropriate song, huh? As I'm preparing and grieving getting on my own airplane and leaving these kids. Both places. I mean, if you know me at all, you absolutely know that I started crying. It was hard to swallow. I didn't realize how much those kids in the projects had affected me. And I was leaving without looking back. I felt terrible.

And not to leave on a negative note, but that's where I'm leaving this blog. I'll write more in the coming days, maybe not for too much longer, but there's still stories to tell about Newark, about the roomies, about the Rangers and kids that I want to tell.

Love, Bethy

PS If you feel like sending some warm fuzzy thoughts, or good vibes, or well wishes, or prayers of any sort, there's some kids in New Jersey who could use them.

the first return

I'm in Bethel. Sitting, with internet, listening to my sister and our friends play music, ordering food, wearing flannel, seeing old and meeting new friends. And I've just been here for 3 hours.

The wedding that brings me here also serves some other functions. I'm moving some of my stuff over, mostly just my Carhartts and hoodies. I'm potentially putting it out there to the Bethel community that I need a job.

I was nervous to come. What if, after a year back in the "real world", I didn't fit in anymore in this little town in the tundra?

Um, the plane arrived. I walked into the airport. I looked for my sister...didn't see her. And then I saw Chris, an old friend, who walked up to me and gave me the best hug of my life. Yes.

I belong here.

Love, Bethy

I hate begging for money...

BUT, I'm going to do it anyway...

Here is where you can sponser me on JVC East's hike to DisO (dis-orientation, our last retreat) on the Appalachian Trail. It's a tradition that goes back years and years, and I'm really excited to be able to take part in it. I'll be hiking with one of my roommates, and many of the friends I've made from other houses on the East Coast this year. This money also goes to help feed and water Laura - the incoming JV who will be taking over my job next year. And I want her in tip-top shape - seeing as how she'll be trying to control the teens and kids that I have grown to love so much in the last year.

Here's what you do, click and sponser. Even $5. (But if you can do more, that'd be great too, haha :) https://atl.etapestry.com/fundraiser/JesuitVolunteerCorps/hiketodis-o/individual.do?participationRef=2315.0.118267985

Much thanks and love!
Bethy

the second month

February is a short month. Always. Even though, by definition of the month itself, it must be at least 28 days long, it never seems to feel like it. The beginning is always a mixture of "oh, I can't believe it's February already" and "I'm just getting used to writing 2010 on my papers/checks/etc...".

And then you hit the end of the second week and it's everyone's favorite holiday. Wait, amend that, some people's favorite holiday, and the holiday that makes everyone else want to cry and run into a hole and not come out until March, when all the cute dating couples that are bitten by the love bug in this month either get over each other or break up. (Do I sound bitter? I may be one of those running and hiding people :).

No, it's really not that bad. I actually really like Valentine's Day. Alot. (True story, I probably would like it better if anything remotely romantic ever happened to me on that day, but ah well, such is life.) I love making valentines for all my friends, baking heart shaped cookies, wearing as much red and pink as I can possibly put on my body...(ooh, we're gonna have to figure that out here with all the gang color issues...that might be all sorts of fun.)

Last year, Valentine's Day came at an interesting point in my life. Anthony had just left Bethel two weeks before, and I was feeling, well, pretty fucking depressed. And my friend Chris Broughton came to my rescue. I'm not sure what Erin was doing that she wasn't going on a date with him, but he took me out to Corina's, we played cards in the back room while waiting for our food, and talked about life. And it was a very different Valentine's Day. There was no lamenting that I didn't have a date, no groups of girls complaining about boys, it was just me and my friend Chris, eating dinner together, playing rummy, and laughing at the back storage room with the one table where those folks at Corina's stuck us because it was probably the warmest place in the resturant. Good memories... Things here on the east coast are different. That definitely wouldn't fly over here.

So, this year, I will be engaging in the usual JV debauchery that happens on all major holidays when JVs get together and someone else pays for the beer (this Valentine's Day, that "someone" is the Camden house.) I will drink to my heart's content, probably get in a group of girls complaining about boys (I mean, let's be honest here) and have a ball. Different, but still good. I am planning on still making valentines for all the houses, and probably baked goods as well (you can take a girl to Camden, but she will still bake a million things and bring them with her). I'm looking forward to it.

And then, two more weeks, a mere 10 days of work, and it's all over. February, that is, will be all over.

...as quickly as it started.

love, Bethy

"Wake up, wake up, wake up...

...it's the first of tha month."


Kudos to everyone who correctly identified the title of the post as Bone Thugs lyrics. Bonus points to anyone who sang them in their head.

Yeah, it’s the blog about New Year’s. I know it’s 26 days late, but hey, it’s still January, right? Right. I probably should have made one of my New Year’s Resolutions to be keep up the blog, but I didn’t. I made 11 other ones, though, some of which I completed right away, some of which I’m still working on actively, some of which I have doubts that they will ever be completed. I figured if I made a lot of them, then I had a higher chance of at least fulfilling one. I won’t list them all here – some were only posted in my journal for a reason – but the list does include:
Exercise at least 2 hours a week
Write in my journal everyday
Take the GRE and apply for grad school
Be kinder to my housemates
Play more music/meditate more

I don’t even think I put in the one about keeping my room clean, which is a usual staple for me. I figure if I couldn’t keep it for the last 7 or 8 New Years’, then why try again only to fail? I know, I’m so optimistic about it. J

I actually have been exercising – that goal changed from 2 hours a week to 5 or 6 miles a week – and I’m doing it. I also vowed to be pescatarian (eats fish and seafood) for the month of January. After a small bump on January 1st, when halfway into a piece of fried chicken, I remembered that resolution, I haven’t eaten meat at all for the last 25 days. I pretty much did it just to see if I could, and it’s been a cool experiment.

I did spend New Year’s in New York. Harlem, to be exact. And it was pretty great. We were at the girl’s house, and I flew in on the 31st to JFK, went straight there, and the party started soon after. I was jet lagged and exhausted, but still found it within myself to party like a rock star (would you expect anything else?). I was especially proud of my outfit: a Lisa Whalen design tie-dye t-shirt, dark skinny jeans from Conway, and a pair of incredible highlighter yellow stilettos that Lisa got for me at a garage sale in Bethel. Pretty amazing. This is the best picture I have of my whole outfit. Alex and I, of course, participated whole-heartedly in any shotgunning that was going down. Newark, represent!

There was, of course, a flipcup tourney. Results are debated heatedly, but I maintain that the girl team won (as we always do) because the only time when the boy team started beating us was when a few girls joined their team. Here’s the girl team, and Brian, who just wants to be a winner even though he was on the other team…


Also, we participated in dancing, singing, and general debauchery (also as usual), and I do believe that this picture pretty much captures the enthusiasm of the crowd. (What song was playing, you ask, when this was snapped? Hmmm…got me. I feel like probably either something Beyonce or Empire State of Mind, based on my open mouth, indicative of me belting out some song that I love.)

…and yes, there WAS a costume change involved that night. Same jeans, different shirt. Hey – the other one was getting pretty warm.

All in all, it was a FANTASTIC night. And then we stayed in NY for the next night too, and I rang in 2010 with great food, great friends, in a wonderful city. On the 2nd, it was back to Newark to get ready for work on the 4th, and back to regularly scheduled life. But I think that 2010 was probably the best New Year’s so far (though I do realize the tendency to think that the most recent one is always the best.)

Blog about Re-O coming soon! I’mma get on it!

Love, Bethy

Christmas(es)...mostly of the Polish variety.

**note to reader: this post is being posted about a month after I wrote it. The way I figure it, it's better than 2 months late.**

I have eaten my fill of mazurek. The little Polish cookies, sort of like shortbread with different toppings are delicious, yes. But at this point, I've been eating them for two weeks, and can't do it anymore...until Easter that is, at which time I will be all too enthusiastic to pop them into my mouth until I feel sick because I have eaten too many.


I'm full of mazurek earlier this year than any other because I did a Polish Christmas in Newark before I came home. The journey that led me to come home for the holidays instead of staying is one for another post, and I won't get into it here. But, I insisted then, that I would do Polish Christmas Eve on the 17th...exactly one week early. And, as all things, it started small, and grew. And grew. And grew. And on the 17th, one week early, the Newark JVC house held a Wiligia with 7 guests - coworkers and friends.


Having never cooked the dishes for Polish Christmas before - only Easter, I tried my best, and found, as I did when I did my first Polish Easter by myself, that that is what home tastes like. Polish Christmas.


And on that night, we lit the candle in the window, we put the straw at the corners of the table, I read the Polish blessing, and everyone stood in a circle and broke oplatki with each other. And once again, "home" got all confused and fuzzy in my mind. Because maybe just at that moment, I couldn't imagine what else would be necessary to make that home.


...and then I went home.


Home - where my mother and father and sister were all also cooking and lighting the candles in the window and setting the table and I had Polish Christmas again. They were exactly the same, and at the same time completely different experiences. I can't say which one I "liked better". There was really no way to compare them. Same smells, same tastes, same traditions - just pulled off in a slightly different manner.

Christmas was definitely different this year. A little rushed - I was only home for one week instead of two - and it was hard to think about coming back to life in New Jersey. But it was still Polish...(and we all know that's really what counts!)

love, Bethy

PS pictures to come soon once I figure out how to do that with no internet at home and no wireless at work with my pictures on my laptop. Hmm...a conundrum.

Snow Poetry

I found this poem that I had written last year on October 2. The first snow of the year was October 1, and I had been in the village all that day (Akiak, if I remember correctly), so the morning of the 2nd was the first morning that I walked to work after it had snowed.



There was hardly a dusting on the ground, but I had been helping out with volleyball practice in the morning, so, at 7:45am, I found myself going from the gym at BRHS over to TWC, and walking in the still and the quiet, I found this:

Today I walked to work
and whiteness brushed my face
landed on my nose and eyelashes
My hands reached
for cold
and warmth
and the beat went on
in my head
in my feet
in my heart
And I thought
I could stay here for a minute
for a day
forever
or...

Today I walked to work
as the snow fell.


Today is December 2. Exactly one year and two months after I wrote that. And in my commute to work this morning, I was thinking about all the differences. We haven't had any snow here, and I honestly kind of can't believe that it's December already...it's not very cold. As I remember, people kept telling me that Newark winters were the worst, but it's weird to not have snow now (in AK for one year, and here I am, expecting snow everywhere haha).

It was interesting to see that even in October, I had already fallen in love a little bit with Bethel, with Alaska, maybe just with the snow, but it was there.

And now here I am in New Jersey, desperately trying to figure out if I'm a "city girl" or ...well, or not. Yes, I love the drive in big cities - the energy - the lights, the action that is always happening. But I found that I also love the quiet, the whispers, the darkness, and the community that Newark, New York, San Francisco, Boston, DC can't offer. And the snowflakes landing on ground that doesn't "belong" to anyone - it is the earth - it "belongs" to all of us.

The search goes on...
The possibilities for next year are looming, opportunities starting to knock, and early as it seems, decisions are needing to be made. I both welcome and dread making them.

I wonder when it will snow here.

Love,