I've always prided myself on knowing how to destress through celebration; today was a prime example.
I spent the last month swimming (and sinking and floating...) through my first independent in-field research project. (I now have a 35+ page document on my hands to prove it.) In any case, while exciting and exhilarating, informative and horizon-broadening, this experience, like all good ones, was TAXING. Today, I just needed to relax...
Formula:
Grab a djembe and a few friends! Meet up with the neighborhood street-corner musicians. Promanade, ensemble, until you hit the river. Wait for the pirogue to arrive. Hop in. (careful with that djembe). Traverse river. Hop out. Pay 25 CFA (5 cents) to the 12-year-old captain. Say 'Jerejef'.
Walk past some colonial ruins; note that there are baby goats frolicking in the gutted second story of an old general's mansion. Don't be surprised when the streets and houses quite suddenly give way to beach and expansive Atlantic ocean. (yes, now is the time to chide yourself for spending so much time typing that pesky paper and not exploring the island!)
Now...
Listen to the waves. Feel the sun (was going to use the adjective 'African', but no, it's the same sun everywhere. Colorado. Vermont. Chile. Africa.) touching your cheeks and collar bone and the rounds of your exposed knees. Locate a comfy dip in the sand and sit. Tip djembe in front of you.
Tap. Pound. Bang. get it all out. Fall into rythm with the others drumming nearby. Sing. Invite the fishermans' children to dance with you, and they will. They will also offer you presents of live fish. Take photos on a digital camera and watch as the subjects smile, shout, and jump when they see themselves. Repeat. (This game will not tire...note that particularly interesting photos will be pointed at with a fish.) Continue until the fisherman part for the night's catch and the sun falls into the ocean, shy and red.
Then...
Get back to the river before the pirogues go home for dinner. Nap. Wake up in time to enjoy fresh fried fish, yassa onion sauce, and bissap juice with the neighbors: Banda, Issa, and Fecckat ('dancer' in Wolof...the real name of this rythmic man has escaped me). Banter in a foreign language and dance to Madonna's 'Like a Prayer'.
Instant Stress Release.
I spent the last month swimming (and sinking and floating...) through my first independent in-field research project. (I now have a 35+ page document on my hands to prove it.) In any case, while exciting and exhilarating, informative and horizon-broadening, this experience, like all good ones, was TAXING. Today, I just needed to relax...
Formula:
Grab a djembe and a few friends! Meet up with the neighborhood street-corner musicians. Promanade, ensemble, until you hit the river. Wait for the pirogue to arrive. Hop in. (careful with that djembe). Traverse river. Hop out. Pay 25 CFA (5 cents) to the 12-year-old captain. Say 'Jerejef'.
Walk past some colonial ruins; note that there are baby goats frolicking in the gutted second story of an old general's mansion. Don't be surprised when the streets and houses quite suddenly give way to beach and expansive Atlantic ocean. (yes, now is the time to chide yourself for spending so much time typing that pesky paper and not exploring the island!)
Now...
Listen to the waves. Feel the sun (was going to use the adjective 'African', but no, it's the same sun everywhere. Colorado. Vermont. Chile. Africa.) touching your cheeks and collar bone and the rounds of your exposed knees. Locate a comfy dip in the sand and sit. Tip djembe in front of you.
Tap. Pound. Bang. get it all out. Fall into rythm with the others drumming nearby. Sing. Invite the fishermans' children to dance with you, and they will. They will also offer you presents of live fish. Take photos on a digital camera and watch as the subjects smile, shout, and jump when they see themselves. Repeat. (This game will not tire...note that particularly interesting photos will be pointed at with a fish.) Continue until the fisherman part for the night's catch and the sun falls into the ocean, shy and red.
Then...
Get back to the river before the pirogues go home for dinner. Nap. Wake up in time to enjoy fresh fried fish, yassa onion sauce, and bissap juice with the neighbors: Banda, Issa, and Fecckat ('dancer' in Wolof...the real name of this rythmic man has escaped me). Banter in a foreign language and dance to Madonna's 'Like a Prayer'.
Instant Stress Release.
posted by Meg at 3:43 PM
8 Comments:
Meg-
You would have loved Montreal, a perfect example of combining your voice or physical presence with thousands of others to make a single powerful statement. Not to mention the great rhythms we would have danced. I cannot wait to learn some of your Senegalese rhythms and see your new dance moves. Dance party required upon your return.
Thank you for the tribute (the sun in Chile). I am looking forward to that experience as well, knowing the sun from the southern hemisphere, learning new constellations, being absolutely foreign and blond and American and the only student in my program at my university (eek!)
December 23rd rushes nearer. Soon...
Love,
Caitlin
P.S. Jenny says "hi." See gave me a shampoo-smelling hug this morning.
One big smile. That's how your entry left me. Or...with the encoded sound of de-stress release, 'wzphw'!! What a vivid, energetic, open into and open some more day at the beach
Funny...and here...it is 4 degrees F and snowing. Dad made it from Boulder to Castle Rock---but just called and booked a hotel, after hours of white-knuckling! Just another moment on another continent! I...well I am anticipatory, engaged, living, loving, listening. Soon, my dear. Very, very soon!!! Ahhhhhh, to have you in my arms!
Love...the Moon...the Sun...the Stars...the same love,
Momma
Hmmmm...tackling into thesis form...interesting idea. Maybe that's what that nine years of football was for. At the time I thought I was "becoming a man" or something. This, I realize now as I stroke the five day shadow on my face and stare into my own jobless and vacant future, was clearly not the case. It could very well be that getting the crap beaten out of me for the better part of a decade was all in the name of academic preparation...that and trying to accomplish my lifelong goal of getting my neck bigger than my head, which, as anyone who has ever seen me, knows is a fearsome challenge ("it's like an orange on a toothpick!")
In any case, I think actually reading more than 5 pages a day is the best thesis strategy.
Yeah, so I need to get out of here. I don't know what it is exactly. Guess I'm just burned out. I have lost the ability to focus on anything. In class this morning, for about twenty minutes straight, the only thing in my brain was this, more or less: "hand hand tiny hand look at the tiny hand wait don't look stop no its still there man that's odd stop that's mean whatever." I should probably mention that one of my professors has one tiny hand. I am not kidding....really tiny....just one. And since, these days, I can be easily distracted by shiny objects or a cardboard box, this is a problem for me. I think about it a lot. Is that wrong?
love to the motherland,
-James
PS- so many words, so little substance. I apologize. It's 2:15 AM.
PPS- I tried to wish Caitlin a happy birthday first hand. She somehow escaped me. Sneaky, that one is.
Meg and James-
Thank you both for the birthday wishes. Meg, two calls from Senegal - amazing! Your voice in my ear - amazing! My birthday - amazing and very low-key. Celebration included hiking Snake Mountain, pad thai, absolutely no homework, and a 9:45 bedtime. Sometimes the simple things in life can make you overwhelmingly happy.
Love to you both,
Caitlin
p.s. Meg, I hope you don't mind that James and I have more or less begun to use your blog to communicate with each other.
Meg,
My friend, as your time grows short may it be all the more fulfilling.
My time now is spent mostly on putting my life back together: catching up with friends, paying bills, cleaning (everything I own, mold grows unbelievably fast in the south), and trying to get back in shape. All things considered I keep busy but life maintains a congenial, shufling pace. Mostly now I anticipate Christmas and going home, and all the more knowing that you'll be home then as well.
May you know work worth doing, done well. May God be gracious to you and bless you, and cause his face to shine upon you.
Nick Hinds
Caitlin 21? Wow, you kids grow up so fast. Meg, reading how you have fared against the undulating currents of your project while imbibing a different culture, helped keep me afloat this fall. I look forward to talking about your experiences when you return.
Morrill
Word on the street is that the Mischords are pretty hot stuff this semester. Probably because we aren't there.
I miss you SO MUCH and am counting the days until our reunion. May there be Heathcliff, singing, and eating involved.
p.s. I have gotten really bored of the music on my ipod recently and as such have been searching for songs I haven't heard in a while. Yesterday on the train, I reached the following conclusion: The time might be right for an arrangement of It's Raining Men. Now, one might ask if it's possible for that song to be translated into a cappela and actually sound good. To that I say, I don't know. Probably not. But either way, you don't know until you try. Fantastic or fantastically awful? Who can tell. But I know one thing for sure - it will be an undertaking of EPIC proportions.
Love, Alex
My Moon - much to say. Choosing to wait the 7 days to say it. Call my dad.
Mumsy: You are sitting next to me. WOOHOOO!!! Stop reading over my shoulder.
xoxo Meg
James: I will respond only to your p.s. statements, as I believe the rest was a bit of mid-finals, pre-thesis gibberish. P.S. #1 I agree. Nonsense. P.S. #2 Shall do, with pleasure, although not sure it'll have the same effect. (you do have a way of bowling people over...Jackie...)
Miss 21: But of course, darling. And I don't mind the messaging one bit. Sometimes simple and small is perfect. Take your brain for example...
Hayley, for God's sake, woman, I already can't wait to see you...stop being wonderful and soulful this instant! I'm itching to see you again and you're making this unbearable.
Nick: God is good to me and has blessed me and has yet to cease shining on me. Amazing. Thanks for the reminder, and I am excited to get together. Call me after the 25th.
Morrill: Undulating and imbibing. How was your semester?
Allister: Epic Proportions? Raining Men? Oh my my my. Ok. I'm on board...ay ay captain????
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