My lil' cornucopia

I’m far less restless than I was a year ago and I have a few suspicions as to why.

I’m dog sitting this weekend- which is always a fine staycation when the family has an espresso machine, an affectionate golden retriever, and a big ol’ sectional fit for a semi-annual blogger. I took the pup for a lap, fed her canned green beans, then brewed myself a nice cup of something Colombian roasted and began to type. That cliche pranced across my mind, “writing until the coffee gets cold” but I’m using one of the familys ‘ember’ mugs— so you press a button on the bottom and then it simply never runs cold. Modern technology has killed poetry!

So here I am, back in Raleigh which I find to be a nest of somethin' calm, quiet, and still. Meanwhile my parents meet up with friends at comedy shows, concerts, and an assortment of reservations Thursday through Sunday. I think it’s funny my near 60-year old parents have a bigger social life than me now. But yanno, I’m not so antsy to be moving just so fast. And I can’t be so sure I would feel the same one year ago. 

Maybe it’s what happens to the brain two years post-grad, or I can amount it to the lingering spanish philosophy of “no pasa nada” (no worries). Perhaps the calm is the byproduct of being in love with someone and things appearing just a bit simpler, or maybe it's stems from the sadness of the heartbreak when you part. Despite the surging tide of emotions each day I’ve been back home, I am content to be so still. It's not because I know that this period is transitory that I’m content with it -- I feel at peace because I finally realize that some of life’s most precious reflections happen in between the big page-turning events. 

Granada was impressionable. Santander the year before was too but I could almost classify it as a warm up; there I had the bumper rails of english-speaking friendship while wading into the water of new culture. While I picture this wonderful and oh so emotional past year, I imagine myself clutching to my chest this brown straw-woven basket.

In that basket that holds a fruitful harvest, with ripe oranges and plump berries, pink fuzzy peaches, and fruit, fruit, precious fruit! If your eyes travel just out of center frame, you may find a few wilted apples have tumbled down to my feet, like the basket had left no room and shoved them out. Flower sprouts replace their nooks where they previously nestled, bursting through the baskets seams.

Those ripe and radiant oranges burrowed between petals and stems, so vibrant and sweet, remind me of a steady and pure love that I experienced everyday this past year.

Thanks to that little basket of abundance that pushes the rotten produce out, I remember the pang of outgrowing people.

Those berries boast a newfound discipline.

Lovely peaches and the beauty of connecting deeply with people in a second language.

In that basket of abundance are so many new sensations: the discomfort of beginning martial arts that sneakily morphs into a passion, the joy of welcoming my sweet parents to Spain and then the deflated feeling of saying bye to them so soon after- the incessant translation, feelings of fulfillment and unfulfillment breathing the same breath, adapting to the slow pace of the Spanish while an unplaceable energy inside taunts me. 

In a year where I can experience 10,001 things, I’m mostly just glad I had the oranges. But thanks to that cornucopia of firsts and hurts, I can move onwards with different eyes. 

As I finally hone in a bit more in what i want to do professionally, and set my eyes on something that actually interests me, well- it makes things a lot easier. Things just take time and I've learned that if you let yourself wait to see what drives your interest, you don't have to tire your legs running towards this grainy vignette of an idea that you think may satisfy you, what you think you would like. We never know what will satisfy us anyways, there is so much work happening out of our own understanding. But I could bet a good Vegas-sized amount that things will work out anyhow.

So there is not much use at all making much fuss about it in the meantime.

I can’t pinpoint what changed. I just feel older I guess. 

Imagine that, a year passes and you feel older… brilliant writing Brynn, truly piercing thoughts there. 

I feel a bit more impermeable, a smidge more assured that I’ll handle what will be thrown at me next. Because although I lost friendships, some at the drop of a hat and others a slow evaporation, five more had scooped me up, sweetly and quietly, setting an entirely new and perhaps overdue precedent. 

This year I felt as though I had been thrown out of the ring, out of the arena, even- tossed about and challenged. But if it had not been for challenge, for change- the kind that brings such powerful feelings and meaningful I-told-you-so type of lessons, would any of this really be worth it at all? If I didn’t feel different on the other side, would any of it have really even touched me? I have learned some of my hardest lessons through a bucket of tears.

Whether it is family, a friend, or a love-- you never really know how long they are set to stick around for. When they finally leave, or perhaps you leave them, it can feel like the rug has been swept out beneath your feet. But everything continues on, and you become a bit more resilient with each blow. After some time you handle the next loss of a friend with more grace, and perhaps the next heartbreak with less breathless sobs. Grieving someone is painful, but how beautiful to know that the pain is rooted in gratitude.

Gratitude anchors me--knowing that out of every man in this world, I got to experience something as pure as my first love with a beautiful, funny, gentle, and patient man from São Paulo. 

The one thing we can be certain of is that tomorrow will not be the same as today, so thank your lucky stars that you are capable of changing with it. While the things and people around you move and morph, you will be moving and morphing too.

Your appetite will change. Y'know I personally never crave sushi these days.

Your standard for friendship will shift. I certainly won’t spend anymore time with people I can’t be myself around.

Your taste in music will change. Hey, weird...I like the Strokes now???

Different pace. New dance moves. You're wearing flip flops all of a sudden.

So when you find that the people around you are just a little different, it's pretty likely something inside you changed as well. But whether you were ready for it or not, just be thankful that time passes and sweeps you up with it too. 

my apartment in Granada in front of the bull fighting ring