Childhood Heroes

Ani. You were the years of my growing up.

(Ani DiFranco at the Rainbow Stage, Clearwater Festival, June 21 2015.)

Hudson River Revival

Volunteering with my dad at the Clearwater Festival, aka the Great Hudson River Revival, aka the beautiful folk music festival started by Pete and Toshi Seeger, and carrying on in their name.

Two Wheels Good

FREEDOM. I finally have a bicycle, and I can already tell it's going to change my life.

I honestly didn't mind being mostly-a-pedestrian through the winter months, and I'm grateful for how walkable Ithaca is. (At least, the downtown parts of Ithaca, not the insanely-steep-hills parts.) But having a bike expands exponentially the places I'm able to go on my own, without having to borrow a car.

For example, yesterday I ushered a show at the Hangar Theatre, which is a bit outside of town, along the lake, and it was a gorgeous day, so I biked out there along the new (or new-ish, to me) Waterfront Trail, and it was perfect. Just perfect. Then, heady over having this new freedom and independence, I went grocery shopping by bike for the first time. Getting everything back home using just my own back and the handlebars (since the bike doesn't have a basket yet) was...interesting, but I managed.

In the evening, I dropped by to see the family friend who'd offered me an old bike basket, but when I got there, he was across the street hanging out on the porch of his neighbors...who happen to be the folks I housesat for this winter.

So I joined them on their porch/what-was-once-very-briefly-my-porch, and we hung out for a while over wine and Thai food. I saw another old family friend bike past and called out to him, and he joined us for a bit, too. (It turned out he was on his way to a birthday party...of someone I went to elementary school with.) This street really might be Ithaca's friendliest, a quiet, short stretch of road that "starts nowhere and goes nowhere," but with so much neighborliness contained within its brief length. (They say they get HUNDREDS of trick-or-treaters each year, because families actually drive in from outlying areas to trick-or-treat on this street, specifically.)

Our host, the one I housesat for, asked me, So, now that you're back, what's the difference? Between Berlin and Ithaca?

I boggled at him and asked, The one difference??

Yeah! he said.

So I thought it over and tried to give a real answer. There are plenty of things I could have complained about, sure (WHY does it require a car to get anywhere in this country? Why are the grocery stores so immense and overwhelming?) but I do believe in trying to see the positive when possible...and in fact, all in all I'm very happy to be here.

So I said: I love that Ithaca has the feeling of a small town, but with the arts and culture of a big city. Like that in the afternoon I could go to a top-quality theater performance, and then in the evening hang out on a porch on a leafy green street, recognizing half the people who pass by and calling out hellos.

The Inadvertent Time Capsule

Nine years ago, I graduated college, worked a summer job in my college town for half the summer while simultaneously preparing to uproot my life and move to Germany for a one-year (ha!) grant program, then gave myself something like a week total to pack up everything I owned, empty out the apartment where I'd lived for the whole second half of college, somehow (the mind still boggles) fit it all inside my parents' car in one go and drive it back across from Ohio to New York with AWESOME parental assistance, pack it all into storage at my parents' house, then also pack for a trip that not only included moving to Germany for a year but also visiting Hawaii and Thailand, uh, "on the way" there (yes, I know my definition of "on the way" is flexible). I shipped one box to Germany, but other than that arrived there with only what fit in my travel backpack. Everything else I'd previously owned stayed in boxes in my parents' house.

And has stayed there, unopened, ever since.

Tomorrow I move into a place of my own in the US for the first time in nine years, a summer sublet with a friend. So all day today I've been digging through my old, stored stuff, finding things I didn't even remember I owned. Hello entire set of pots and pans and kitchenware! Hello bedsheets I bought as a freshman going off to college, blue and spangled with moons and stars. Hello lovely old chest in which my college housemate and I stored kahlúa and all our other fun drink mixers for parties, which is apparently something that college friends still remember about me and I'd forgotten: my house was always the place with the fun and creative drinks. (I pause here to frown in Germany's general direction, for getting me accustomed to nothing but beer, beer and more beer.) Hello table made from an old orange crate. Hello lovely Thai fabrics waiting all these years to be draped over things.

Y'all and I are going to have some fun this summer.