I think I have been avoiding doing one of these but I am moving to Crema, Italy soon and I want to have a way for the people who are interested in what I'm doing out there to find out and for those who don't want tons of mass emails to be able to avoid knowing what I am doing. :)
Yesterday Celeste and I drove home from Provo, mostly in the dark since we left so late. It was nearly like a dream and I had a lot of time to think, reflect, introspect. So here it is, inspired by a line I said to my friend Jordan a couple days ago: oh the places life brings you. In the past year and a half (because I'd rather not think about anything that happened earlier) as I have completed my junior and senior years of college, I have found myself in places--some at home, some abroad, but all so near--I would not have believed if you had told me even two years ago. Sometimes time stands still long enough for a girl to notice that this is a moment she should not forget. Some highlights:
-admittedly crying on a bench in the unfeeling JFK airport because I'd just missed my plane to Rome and looking up to the comfort of seeing a friend from my hometown
-relaxing an afternoon away in a hammock overlooking a vineyard just outside of Rome
-singing karaoke "I still haven't found what I'm looking for" at a full pizzeria in the Castelli Romani, near that same vineyard
-lonely on the deck of a seafaring vessel in the middle of the Adriatic Sea, looking at the lights on the shore of what must have been Croatia and Greece
-at the foot of the acropolis thinking about renegade Socrates as I look at the Parthenon as thousands of cyclists whiz past in pursuit of a gold medal
-being offered a beer (no, thanks) by an Aussie named Steve (NOT the Croc Hunter and no he doesn't have a pet platypus) at an Olympic volleyball match
-walking at sunset, alone once again, along the shores of Pireaus, Athens' port district
-sharing a taxi with lovely-faced Giorgos the Village Doctor at 3 a.m. after 2 hours of talking and waiting for the bus that wouldn't come. Too bad he never called me.
-lots of other Greek caught-in-a-moments I can't express in a list
-working lunch, homemade, every Wednesday courtesy of the zany Dr. Christensen and 8 TAs, some of whom would become some of my closest friends
-grading until 3:30 a.m. with Brice in the poli sci dungeonslashoffice
-with Rebecca making up songs about everyone we know
-in a TV studio on Election Night 2004, wearing a microphone and a hot suit, pretending that I know how to be a political analyst.
-arguing in Tijuana over the cost of a marble chess set
-under the spires of the San Diego temple as one of my best friends gets married
-meeting my new baby brother at the tender age of 20
-driving home through an evil blizzard during finals week to attend the funeral of a close friend... and finding over the months that tears for loved ones never really dry
-in the Marriott Center as Elder Oaks waves his arms in a humorously commanding manner as he declares, "it's marriage time!"
-in the classroom as a rocket scientist teaches political science theory by showing Simpsons episodes
-singing the national anthem to a stadium full of people at a minor league pro baseball game. And dragging Brandon along for support.
-floating effortlessly in a lake of salt for hours after narrowly escaping death by sandstorm
-with Spence dancing to jazz "popcorn popping on the apricot tree" as we leave the library at midnight, each of us having finished 3 pages of a 10-page policy suggestion paper due in eight hours. It was summer, okay?
-at the summit of a mountain/sheer cliff called "Angel's Landing" because apparently only an angel could land there
-Abravnel Hall, Beethoven's 9th, with Zaiah B, check that off the list of things I need to do before I die.
-sipping Babo drinks in SLC with three beautiful girls after attending the Saturday afternoon conference
-in an empty ballroom dancing my clumsy variation on the waltz with a patient Fred Astaire
-at the wedding reception of the guy who was my best friend for at least four years
-in the kitchen of a handsome Italian man as he shames me with his domestic skills and gives me jewelry
-several individual mallet-to-the-heart occasions of realizing quite unexpectedly that I love someone. Oh how it hits me all'improvviso.
-taking a final under a lamp that my Democracy in America (political philosophy! agh!) professor placed in the middle of the classroom for me after I'd complained about how dark the room is in which we'd have to write the exam
-sipping an iced vanilla storm with another one of my best friends (how many can a girl have?!) at the Nordstrom bar
-in the arms of a thousand friends I know I may not see again
I've realized this year that people are special not for the specifics of what they are as much as simply that they are yours. More than ever that to be happy you must love yourself. That the human spirit is resilient and universal and generous (find it--what a gift). That my most important learning is not found in legal pads full of notes or highlighted textbooks but in the kind of person I become. That memories live not in ticket stubs or even photographs but in relationships and, again, the person I've become. That daydreams turn into real dreams--the kind you live--with persistence and imagination. That the best relationships find at first a spontaneous birth and then are perpetuated via selflessness and diligence and laughter.
Was that sufficiently pensive?
Gather up your jackets, move it to the exits, I hope you have found a friend.
Savanna
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