Sooner or later all vehicles develop minds of their own (and that's where the trouble starts).

A momentous event in the life of the Martin children: today they drove home from church backward and nobody was killed.

But seriously, it’s a good story.

It started this weekend when Mom and Dad left for a high school reunion in Lancaster and we had complete charge of the house for forty-eight hours.  There were squabbles about who would fold the laundry, who would cook the meals… heaven forbid someone doesn't do their share of the dishes… etc.  If you have siblings of your own, YOU know what I mean.  Anyhow, chore-duty got all sorted out and we survived, the only mishap being the van breaking down.  Which was quite an event.  (Readers, please take note: this was NOT the new one just purchased earlier this week, it was the big red-and-white dinosaur bus that’s served us well for quite a while.) 

After we left church and piled into the van, Jake shifted into reverse, pulled out of the parking space, and prepared to exit the parking lot… only to be met with the vaguely crunchy sound of grinding automobile parts and a vehicle that absolutely, positively would not budge.  We sat there for the next five minutes, creating an obvious roadblock while Jake fiddled with the gear stick and the rest of us yelled helpful hints from the backseat.  At last it was clear that the van would drive in reverse, and only reverse.  So we set off slowly, trying to ignore the puzzled stares from people in other cars as we inched out of the parking lot backward and pulled onto the street.  For the rest of the drive (only about a mile), Jake steered while the rest of us peered out of the windows and shouted advice like:

“Watch it!  You’re veering!”

 “Try not to drive on top of the yellow line!”

“Don’t run over that man!”

…and other such helpful tidbits.  We did make it home in one piece (props to Jake for some impressive driving) and left all pedestrians unscathed, as promised.  The van is now parked in an empty lot on top of South Allegheny hill, its fate to be determined.

    

The rest of the morning and afternoon included a crazy three-person game of basketball at the YMCA with Jake and Charlotte, culminating in Char literally ripping a sleeve off Jake’s T-shirt (much to everyone’s astonishment) and both of us falling to the floor in hysterical laughter while he examined the ragged remains.  To be fair, it wasn't really a basketball game – more like a lot of flailing, flinging, jumping on backs, and war whoops that happened to also involve a basketball somewhere in there.

These are the kinds of days that seem more rare and noteworthy lately, especially because it’s becoming quite obvious that I’m not the only one at home learning to grow up and live an adult life.  Or, you know, something at least resembling that.  Jake’s graduated, Charlotte is embarking on her second-to-last high school voyage as a junior, and Abby’s testing the waters as a freshman.  The older two have jobs during the week, and the youngest can usually be found behind mountains of homework.  (I don’t remember the mountain being quite so big when I was fifteen… hmm).  So it’s a bit strange, getting used to my younger siblings being all over the place, living their own lives, driving their own cars, working real jobs.  Coming home to find the house empty and wondering, “Where did they all go?”  I know that’s the nature of families, that independence is something that happens slowly and I guess you get used to being around each other less and less.  But sometimes I miss when we were little kids.

This will be my third year living at home since I've graduated high school.  Every year I've been telling myself it might be the last.  Not in a can’t-wait-to-get-out-of-here kind of way (though let’s be honest, who doesn't feel like that sometimes?).  More of a I-honestly-have-no-idea-what’s-coming-next kind of way.  It’s exciting to imagine what might be waiting up ahead.  But something I've been trying to learn and relearn over the past year or so is not to hold onto any of my plans too tightly.  Things are always changing.  Especially when you’re eighteen… nineteen… twenty…  Take this past January for example, when I was struck with possibly the worst bout of wanderlust I've ever experienced and started seriously thinking about buying one-way plane tickets to far-off places.  (Ahem… I say “seriously” but this particular strain of wanderlust ripped through my system in about two weeks before I was back to a normal spring semester of college).  Then about a month later, I applied to Millersville University, got accepted, and had high hopes of starting there as an English education major this fall.  So if you would have asked me where I’d be come September, oh, seven or eight months ago, I wouldn't have said here.

Yet here I am.  Once again thinking it might be the last year at home.  But who knows?  Here’s to crazy basketball and temperamental vehicles from the dark ages.  This is the stuff of life as of this semester, this month, right now.

Some scribblings from the bus...

Funny, how you can find potential story characters absolutely EVERWHERE once you start looking for them.  I’m back to paying attention on the bus again, disguised as your everyday passenger absorbed in headphones and the occasional book… but inside I’m taking mental notes, plucking idiosyncrasies here, interesting facial features there, a snatch of dialogue eavesdropped from a conversation just behind my seat, a pair of astonishingly beautiful eyebrows…  And I feel like I know all these people that I’ve ridden this bus with for the past two years, though it’s really just crisscrossing, sharing the same space for a little while before we all scatter to our separate lives.

The man in the cardigan and pressed slacks, the one with the warm eyes.  He looks like the kind of person who notices things.  His name is Ernie, I just found out today.  It suits him.  Before that, I’d been thinking of him only as The Gentleman because of the way he always waits at the very back of the line for everyone else to board before getting on the bus himself.  A few times I tried hanging back, wondering if he’d possibly get on before me… but no, each time he’s nodded oh so graciously yet insistently.  Go on.  Find a seat.  I’ll wait.

The… I don’t know what to call them individually… it’s practically impossible NOT to think of them as a group… the… oh dear.  This delightful gaggle of women (some of them might be professors, almost all of them work at the university), they sit behind me in the very back every morning and are the absolute loudest people on the bus.  I can turn up my music as high as I want and still hear everything.  Sometimes it’s outrageous.  Sometimes it’s just plain old funny.  Always lots of raucous laughter.  One time they got into a spirited discussion about the evils of antibacterial soap, and (unbeknownst to them of course) I jotted the whole thing down then and there… I wish I could find those notes.  They are a blunt, sharp-humored bunch.  VERY smart. 

Then there’s Ponytail Man.  Well, he used to be Ponytail Man until one day he boarded the bus with that long blondish ponytail missing and a normal, everyday haircut in its place, but to me he is and always will be Ponytail Man.  I’ve sat behind him and next to him a couple of times, close enough to glance at the books he always carries with him in that beat-up camouflage backpack.  Lots of Japanese manga, not translated.  The cute schoolgirl and giant robot kind.  More Japanese books.  It makes me wonder if he’s learning the language or is perhaps already fluent.  He reads those a lot, and sometimes Louis L’amour paperbacks.

There’s a new boy who gets on the bus in the evenings, at the stop right after we pass the grocery store.  He’s lithe and thin, with muscular, tanned arms and a pair of the skinniest legs I’ve ever seen (pants a little too short, rolled up; boots a little too big, the leather work kind).  He looks like he grew up running through cornfields and playing baseball.  Lanky blonde hair, impossibly dark eyebrows.  The other day he pulled out a newspaper and read it the entire way into town, half-smiling, utterly absorbed, like the newsprint was telling him secrets.  He’s a cross between Peter Pan and Almonzo Wilder, with (I think) a touch more of the former.  I’ve started calling him Peter Pan in my head.

The beautiful black baby (well, not really a baby anymore, probably two or three – and not really black, more like chocolate – but “the chocolate toddler” sounds quite strange indeed) who I see occasionally in the mornings with her mom.  They get on at the stop just after the train tracks, the mother loaded down with diaper bag and stroller, baby in tow.  She (baby) is now big enough to sit in a seat of her own, chubby legs outstretched, body bent forward in an effort to take it ALL in – passengers, the view from every window, the driver.  All with that wide-eyed, solemn gaze.  When they get off just before we reach the mall, the crowd in the back of the bus gets a little quieter, waiting.  Mother and baby disembark, the baby straining to hold onto the diaper bag while still peering around to get a last look at all of us on the bus.  She has no idea she is queen of the XB.  And they get off… we’re all still waiting.  Will she?  Will she do it?  And, without fail, just as the mother hoists her onto her hip and slings the diaper bag over the other shoulder, she does, she strains back toward the departing bus and waves regally with one tiny hand.

Two Weeks In

(Not actually my library, but I wish.  It looks like heaven.)

It’s officially starting to feel like college season.  Textbooks scattered across the floor; notes to myself strewn over the desk like falling leaves (most of which don’t make sense after I write them); a lone coffee pot sitting expectantly beside my math folder; a page full of fragments, doodles, and beautiful words (if I ever scrounge up the money for another tattoo, I’ll have TONS of ideas); and my perpetually overstuffed green backpack slouched against the chair.  This, all mixed in with remnants of summer: a box of seashells bought on a whim from a flea market (what I’ll do with them I have no idea), my now-broken Chacos lying in a heap beside the fan, a paper bag of tea from Central Market on the bookshelf, and letters and photos from camp.  Lots of them, everywhere.  I like my clutter.  I think it reflects a healthy sense of creative chaos. 

     

Anyhow.  College.  As I might have mentioned in a previous post, my college experience is a bit different than the norm.  I’m taking online classes through a community college three hours away.  I’ve been to the actual college once, over a year ago, and that was to register for my first semester.  Haven’t been back since.  My reason for deciding to do college this way is pretty simple: it’s what I can afford.  Yeah.  That’s really all.  Online college is full of both blessings and curses.  Honest confession: I’ve been feelin’ the curses a lot more recently.  Here are some general tidbits about my school experience:

1. I spend a lot of time in front of a screen, obviously.  To the level where I can sometimes feel my eyeballs drying out.
2. Even though my classes are not “do it at your own pace”, they’re not real-time either.  So as long as I meet my deadlines, I can read/watch lectures and do my homework whenever I fancy.
3. Sometimes when I say “I take online classes”, I feel like I have to make up all these really big, fancy reasons as to why online college is just as real as… well, real college.  And then I get annoyed with myself for being so insecure.  So I won’t give you any big, fancy reasons.  Take my word for it: you do as much work in an online class as you would any class on campus. 
4. A speech class online is probably one of the worst things you could do to yourself.  I gave my first speech via webcam in a magnificent thunderstorm.  Then the power went out.
5. For someone who likes to learn with all five senses, being mostly limited to a stationary setting is enough to make me want to leap out the window sometimes.
6. One time in a conversation about college, a well-meaning person told me, “I could never do online classes.  I’m a verbal processor.”  This verbal processor would like to respectfully disagree.  It’s not my first choice, not by a long shot.  But hey, you do what works.  And you find ways to compensate.
7. Learning online is not as simple as I assumed upon starting this whole gig a year ago.  Self-motivation is the key.  Unfortunately, I’m still looking for this key.  If you ever find it, let me know.  I’ll most likely be barricaded in my room, pounding out a research paper the night before it’s due.

I hope that those few snippets have given you a glimpse into the world of virtual higher education.  For my part, these past two weeks have been quite a struggle for me.  Lots of days spent missing people, craving diversity and a change of scenery, wondering what it would be like to sit in a classroom with other students and have the luxury of talking face-to-face with my professor if I wanted.  Don’t get me wrong, there are many things about my situation that I appreciate so, so much.  Not having a rigid schedule is great.  Being able to pick my own hours at work is great.  Living right next door to Penn State and being able to make use of the enormous libraries and take the bus everywhere is great.  Having the flexibility for things like road trips and spending time with friends is wonderful.  After all, it’s not like I spend all my time locked away in my room, staring at the computer with a glazed expression (just sometimes).  And when that does happen, the rule is this: go play.  Go for a walk, get a snack, explore, see something new, read a book I actually like, listen to some music, have a private dance party, meet up with a friend, grab the sisters and go running.  But still… sometimes a girl gets stir-crazy.  Part of it also has a lot to do with transitioning from such an adventure-filled summer away from home.

      

This week I spent loads of time daydreaming about traveling and concocting crazy schemes about things I’d like to do after college.  Also… tattoos.  ANYWAY.  Friday into today I ended up taking a much-needed trip to Elizabethtown to visit some very dear friends from camp.  Seeing them again did my heart so much good (guys, I hope some of you are reading this – I love you more than I can say).  Laughter, stories, firelight, playground adventures, a bare-handed cake-eating contest, soccer ending in a broken garage window, creek explorations… it was one of those weekends that left my soul overflowing with good things.  On our way back from the creek, all of us thoroughly soaked and happy as thunder rumbled in the distance, Anna grabbed my hand, smiled, and said, “I’m completely content right now.”  I realized so am I, and it was a wonderful feeling.  I am so grateful for friends that I can be childlike with.  Friends that I can laugh with.  Friends who love to dream big dreams.

     

I should be grateful more often, and I’m not.  I wish I knew the secret of being content in every situation, and I don’t.  This semester is what it is, and online college still frustrates the heck out of me on bad days, and I’m still longing to go explore faraway places and my heart is homesick for things I can’t even name… but here I am.  And… honestly I’m not sure if I feel okay with that or not.  Right now contentment is a bit of a day-to-day thing. 

     

Today I was, though.  And it felt really good.