Recent History

We really need to continue posting on this blog. It helps us stay connected.

My life has had its fair share of ups and downs recently. School to be honest is terrible. I have trouble with my friends who seem to resent me for leaving, and just not understand why I would ever leave. I do have a couple friends who seem to understand, but they don't seem interested in the same type of meaningful relationship that I am. I'm having some fun, but it seems to come in small amounts compared with the relentless stress of being a senior—and no my teachers do not believe in letting us slide, more work, harder grading, stricter policies, horror stories about not being allowed to enroll due to poor senior grades.

Right so sorry bout the rant. I'm also sorry that this isn't prophetic, or eloquent, but it is true.

I miss everyone and I look forward to seeing more of you in the future.

The last day I have in my journal. 42,814 words spread over 52 pages (102 double-spaced!). Certainly a document I will keep for a long, long time.

Day 98

Good Intentions Paving Co.

Since Ian's posts are coming to a close, I want us to start doing our own humbles.

Here is mine today:

Sarah and I realized near the end of the semester that the lyrics at the end of of Good Intentions Paving Co. had a poetic similarity to what was happening in our lives right then. I wanted to post them, because I still think that they are beautiful, and that they describe us.

And no amount of talking

Is going to soften the fall,

but like after the rain

step out of the overhang, thats all

and there is hesitation,

and it always remains,

concerning you, me,

and the rest of the gang

and in our quiet hour,

I feel I see everything,

and am in love with the hook

upon which everyone hangs

and I know you meant to show the extent

to which you gave a god dang

you ranged real hot and real cold,

but I'm sold

I am home on that range.

And I do hate to fold,

right here at the top of my game

When I've been trying with my whole heart and soul

to stay right here in the right lane

But it can make you feel over and old

lord you know its a shame

when I only want for you to pull over, and hold me

til I can't remember my own name.

Love,

Rachel

And here we are again.

Day 97

We're dwindling down to where the days contain nothing more than a notice of existence.

When you get down to it, is anything really anything other than that?

If that much at all?

Day 96

How about something more light hearted?

I made this not for you, but you can think of it as if I made it for you.

Hello again.

Day 95 tuesday

Oh boy oh boy it's a Monday. On a Wednesday! What luck. That's about all there is, though.

Day 94 monday

Cold Spring Mornings

These New England spring mornings are shooting me back to the old 7 45 AM walk uphill to breakfast.

Every time I walk out my front door and shiver in the part of my driveway that the sun hasn't hit yet, I get overcome by a creeping sense of anticipation...as if I am once again getting ready for a day of doing work on the dusty library floor and eating five cold pancakes at 10 30 AM because its the only thing in the dumb snack container and then lying around in the tall grass making animal noises and then traipsing across Siberia to my site.

And even though I'm not actually in Vermont with you guys, it makes me feel better to know that at this time, last year, I had an amazing day...and it started with a morning just like this one.

Sunday, May 23rd, just because you're such an amazing group. Today is a day where we at TimTams. TimTams! So fun to say. TimTams!!

Day 93

Lazy day so far... finally woke up at 10 after brief bouts of consciousness at 8. After a shower I read Color of Magic outside. It was only Sam S and P in the dorm, and we all left at separate times for brunch. Brunch was fine; the eggs were not as satisfying as that one time that David, Rafi and I made them. Nell helped out on dish crew, and we got it done by 12:30. I was on sanitizer, and was glad to hear Jeremy [by Pearl Jam] on the radio after Patrick changed it from a pop station.

I shot some hoops with Freddy before heading to Miles and playing guitar some. Mom called after that, and then I listened to Dire Straits and Nevermind before reading some more. Study soon? We'll see.

So it's later now... after that first block I sat around and listened to music. I did start writing my English speech, and found Lex after amazing pizza dinner to work on it. Seriously, Shizue and I freaked out over the steak-peppers-onions-mushrooms-olives-pepperoni pizzas. Nick, Aidan and Jay gave a Monty Python humble: the part from Holy Grail where Arthur and Dennis argue. My favorite line would have to be the one involving the moistened bint lobbing a scimitar. You can't be king because some watery tart hurled a sword at you! Many laughs.

After dinner I worked on my speech with Lex until my battery ran out. He, Rachel, Yoyo, Anika, Freddy and I looked at portraits of Yoyo and Anika that Rachel took. Back at the dorm, I found Kit and Rowan walking down, and then sat with Adrija, Nell, Sam P, and Sarah. We chilled for a bit, like the time we chilled earlier, except without Sam P and Nell and with Sam S, Celli and Megan K. There were popsicles and TimTams. After that, I worked on my speech and procrastinated with Jimmy and Taylor, talking about how Rafi would act at the Island School. Going to review stories and practice my speech after this.

Hey guys it's an actual day!! Could this be Saturday, May 22nd? I don't know. Probably.

Day 92

Won two games of knockout this night! Probably not that good for my ankle/foot. Breakfast was oats and things; Hallie, Shizue and I had good times on cook's crew. Hallie and I played Lisztomania on Derby Lawn while Sarah, Rosii, and Zoe RA listened. I also played my second song, which she liked. I wrote that after breakfast while Patty sort of soloed off it. Lunch was steak sandwiches with cheese, peppers, and onions, lasagna, rolls, and cider, great cider. Great bite to it. Cleaned a bit more. Lay on Derby Lawn and played music. Wrote up tabs for two songs before the Wagon Wheel recording session. It went well, although the take they liked best was later, after the knockout games at 10. They is Isaac, Rafi, and Taylor by the way. I got some good recording studio footage though... hrm.

After that was the activity, a murder mystery at the Miss America pageant. It was alright, but multiple people had to double up on roles. Celli and I were a team. People had fun with it. It was fairly interesting. I've never been much into the whole murder mystery deal (I got a book of them... they're just stupid. Maybe I'm saying that because I find them hard... but I just don't like them). I figured out how to play Romeo and Juliet, at least the beginning, after several puzzling moments. Comfort brought Cedar up for Sarah to babysit when she was visiting, and soon Rachel and Rosii had stopped by. We all played with Cedar, Taylor and Isaac coming in, which was fun (This was all around 3-4). What else? Maddy, Sarah, Kemi, Nora, Claire, Isaac, Rafi, Taylor, and I all played knockout and a make-a-shot-take-a-dare game. That's about it. My cast is starting to bug me. Tomorrow I'll study English. Fun.

Another nothing day. Sorry about that. How are you today?

Day 91 friday

Hemenway Speech

Every member of the senior class at our school had to give a speech today - their Hemenway speech - to the senior class, some faculty members who judged, and anyone else from the school who had a free period and wanted to come listen. It was really incredible to hear from everyone - you could basically write about anything you wanted to write about. What I loved the most was that people really opened up, just like we all had at TMS. People shared intimate, personal thoughts and feelings - taking risks and being vulnerable.

My speech was inspired by TMS and my final reflection. I thought I'd share it all with you. It actually takes part of my final reflection because that's really the message that I wanted to deliver to my class, because I hadn't gotten to tell everyone about this one thing I took back from TMS. I thought it also really applied to our situation now - at the end of our senior year.

Raindrops and Dandelions: Life At It’s Fullest

Last spring I spent a semester at The Mountain School. I can remember one day very vividly. A light sprinkle fell from the sky as my roommate and I crossed Siberia, an expansive, open field filled with hills. We were heading back from our science sites, Our heads turned down, and our bodies pulled into ourselves, we tried to protect ourselves from the cold wet droplets that were bringing our spirits down. We were cold, wet and tired. Yet then, all of a sudden, Sarah and I decided that we just wanted it to pour. If we were going to get wet, it better not be from a light sprinkle. We wanted to feel the rain pound hard on our bodies, to shower down and soak us to the skin, just like in The Notebook. We looked up to the sky, opened up our arms to the clouds above us, and screamed at the top our of lungs, “POUR!” I gazed up as if I were looking into the soul of the sky, and slowly turned around as I heard my voice echo “RAIN! POUR!” in the distance.

Shedding our raincoats, we wandered through the grass and plopped down in the middle of the rolling hills to string dandelion crowns. By the end, I was shivering from the cold and the excitement. I not only felt such appreciation for the world around me, but also felt so alive. It was in that one spontaneous moment that despite the rain and cold, I was happy.

~~~~~~~~~

Too often we lose site of the moment. In our society, so many people get caught up in busy lives filled with schedules, appointments, activities, and plans. Often my concentration is the future – I need to study hard to get into a good college so I can get a good job so I can live a happy and successful life. Many other people have similar mindsets, concentrating on fulfilling their aspirations and planning their lives based on future goals. Although it is not bad to keep goals in mind, I believe that we should not be afraid to live in the now. We need to take time to do something not for the future but instead because that is exactly what we want to do in this very second. This is one lesson I took away from my time spent at The Mountain School. I learned to live as if there were always a finite time limit. I learned to be spontaneous and ready to spin any occasion into a positive, fulfilling, memorable event.

Too frequently in our lives, time moves so slowly. I previously felt that I would be at Winsor forever. However, I do not have much time left. Yet, although endings are sad, they allow you to better appreciate the time you do have to spend with the people around you, wherever you are. With the pressure of time and the realization that we do not have forever together, it is harder to get lost in daily routines. For seniors at Winsor, we are able to concentrate more on all the good things we love about our school – the people we care about, the support of the teachers, the community we are a part of. So why can’t we live like this all the time? The answer is – we can. Even without the pressure of time, we can still appreciate every moment of our lives and remind ourselves to take some time to simply live.

I believe that everything happens for a reason. It does not matter if each decision fits on the line that leads straight to your goal, for if that is where you truly belongs, you will get there eventually. Even if a decision or action does not make sense, in the end, every person will get to where they need to be. Until then, you should not be afraid to take time to live as if there were an approaching end. You should try to always feel the need to make the most of every situation, no matter where you are in life. Appreciate the people in your life and remind them how much they mean to you – even if you are not about to part from them. Put a positive spin on any situation. Live in the moment and make spontaneous whole-hearted decisions. Scream at the sky. Run through the pouring rain. String dandelion crowns. Live your life – do not let it pass you by.

This is another odd day. It could almost be a poem? Or maybe a song lyric? Anyway. Apparently Thursday was not terribly interesting. What I CAN tell you from this day (and probably the previous) was that Scibetta and I had a work station set up in the Miles common room, and we both pumped out our essays while lounging about on those sofas, me with my obnoxious cast, he with his obnoxious keyboard. Good times there.

Day 90 thursday

Cool spider outside the door as a moth flies into the window over and over while I finish my research paper. Wrote a song.

accumulated thoughts

hey everyone. love you all to the moon and back. there are a lot of things i've been wanting to say for a while, but quite frankly really haven't gotten around to doing.

firstly--ian, you really are the man, i love reading your blog posts...especially the latest introductions about your (mis)adventures in Italy. Awesome. sometimes i just sit there and refresh the page a billion times hoping that another diary entry will pop up, even if i know it won't. those entries make my day. love you!

so FIRST, there's been a lot of mountain school in my life lately. just quiet little reminders, soft and piercing as a ray of light. that sounds super duper corny, but it's true, you know? those little touches that just brush by you, but somehow shoot right to your core. that's what a reminder of mountain school feels like. in my short story class, we recently read "good country people," by flannery o'connor. and we had a fairly good discussion, but nothing on par with english class. no sirree. even though i'm not a ginormous fan of the story, just reading it again, remembering our discussion of it and the room where that took place...brought me back. wow. we also did some sigma notation in calculus--a small amount (which was probably way better for my grade in all honesty), but still something. shout out to precalc! these are just the tip of the iceberg, as i honestly cannot remember all the other little details, but there have been plenty more. and, of course, sugaring. sugaring, sugaring, sugaring. that obviously brought a whole lot of tms back into my life.

secondly...there's a quote/story/general train of thought i want to share with you guys. i guess this is a humble style thing to say. i've always hated one thing about dreams, and that's that when they're absolutely amazing, once you wake up, it's all gone, and you can't really remember it for more than a day or so. not as vividly, at least. when i think about you all, it's as if we all shared the same dream, the most wonderful, beautiful, most delightful amazing blissful dream, but didn't ever know each other in real life. when we go away from each other, it's like waking up from the dream, but seeing people again, or talking with them again--that makes the dream start up, right where it left off. but it's not a dream, it's all real. and that's so beautiful to me. I'm so grateful i have you and the teachers and the sheep and the goats and the cows and the chickens and nigel and EVERYONE else in my life. dr. seuss once said, "you know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams." that's what i think of when i think about mountain school.

Change

Things seem to be changing right in front of my eyes this year.
While at Mountain School my oldest sister began dating a woman. It was something that I didn't think a lot about because she is my sister and I had no issue with her change in sexual orientation. I admire her ability to accept and embrace these new feelings; I love her more for saying "I accept love of any kind, boy or girl." She doesn't need to restrict herself by "coming out" as a lesbian or bi, she simply is able to accept the fact that she has found love with a woman.
My feelings toward this situation haven't changed, but since she finally got the courage to tell my parents a couple months ago nothing has been the same. There have been moments during the past couple months where I have felt as though my family is falling apart. My parents did not react in the way that my sisters and I had hoped. Family is the most important piece of my life for as long as I can remember and it has felt like a disconnect in my life with my parents not talking to my sister and my sister feeling as though they don't love her anymore. It has scared me to feel as though my family is capable of being broken after so many years of believing that nothing could.

I know my family must grow up, but to see it grow in this way has affected me more than I think about, more than I like to say. I have been so busy with school work, college apps, performances, and my senior project that I haven't allowed myself to acknowledge or at least put into words how my parent's actions and my family's dynamic has changed me. No longer do I feel as though I have the unconditional love of my parents; intellectually I know I do, but emotionally I doubt their ability to accept things outside their understanding.

I have become trapped in a small box and all I want is to escape the uncertainty and fragility that is closing in.

May your pools be frail on this first of April. As for today's entry, it's quite exciting, and all true.

Day 89 wednesday

Heard a woodpecker today.