Kenya!

Welp Everyone.Jambo! I did it. After 30 something hours of travel I am up and wandering around a mall in Nairobi like it aint no thang. So much cool stuff happened so far and I've only been here for a few hours. Firstly, the flights were insane and really long and on both 8 hour flight someone passed out and needed to be revived by nurses on board. The Amsterdam airport is OFF THE CHAIN. For real. It is probably one of the coolest places I've ever been. First off the design there is totally money. There are a bunch of really cool lounges with brightly colored Dr. Seuss looking chairs and plexiscreens that look like fireplaces, there was a woman just killing it on the piano, did I mention there was a piano at the airport. There is also a fully loaded art museum, an airport library with a ton of really cool art and design books, a spa, a Whiskey museum, and tons of really really ridiculously good looking Europeans to stare at. I had four hours there and it was pretty incredible. There was also some really cool chairs all set up for napping in front of a huge screen that played images of the Holland countryside to relax you. Their medidation room is rad and when you go to put your shoes in the little cubbys, just look out for someone's rollerblades? That they have apparently been cruising around the airport in..... Hilarious.

So I arrive in Kenya. I left at 630 am in Reno on Saturday and arrive at 8:30 pm in Nairobi. There was an epic fire at the airport two weeks ago so the entire thing is now makeshift tents that they have sprung up to do visas, customs and baggage claim. And of course it's pouring rain. So we get shuttled down to the first tent, wait forever for a visa. Get the visa. Then wander into another tent where a bunch of people are just standing around and it keeps getting more and more crowded. Then finally they released us into the main tent where everyone's bags are laid out in long lines like dead bodies. The sturdy backpack made it, I scoop it up and wander out. There are a two people operating customs. You just walk up and hand them your declaration form which they barely glance at and put in an enormous pile. And you are in Kenya. I found the Whole Foods people right away as I exited, I didn't remember all the pictures of my fellow volunteers but they looked like and were my people so that was a lucky guess. We headed out into the night. The exit of the airport reminded me a lot of arriving in Mumbai, India. It's super dark out and there are like fifty people waving signs and none of them say CTC or Whole Foods. We hang out for a really long time and then realize that the sign for 'Gamewatchers WFP group #3' is our sign. Rubie Ruth from CTC meets us and she is an incredibly beautiful, bespectacled ray of sunshine. She scoops us up into the vans and we head to our hotel.

First off we drive through Nairobi and it's filled with roundabouts and crazy billboards that are enormous and hilarious. There are all these weird birds napping in trees. There are people walking around through the light rain, but it's so dark it's hard to really get a grasp on things. We get to our hotel which is SICK. It feels way too nice for how rundown I look and feel. There is a coy pond out back and tons of lush trees and plants everywhere. The wooden lobby is clean and colonial looking and a random cat is walking about. I'm in Africa. I'ts not even setting in yet. But I am. I sleep the greatest sleep I've had all month and wake up feeling amazing. I take a little walk around the hotel in the morning while guys are sweeping up leaves and patroling the grounds. The group meets up for breakfast and I eat some crazy fruit that is a mix between lychee and rambutan, some eggs and a butload of tea. Rubie from CTC gathers us and we head on the first leg of our voyage. We drove through Nairobi and it's incredible. It's very jungle-like and also like a town. There seems to be construction on everything and juxtaposes of giant fancy hotels shadowing tiny broken down hutches. There are people along side the road selling plants and making furniture out of wood. We are currently at a mall adjacent to the US Embassy to get some last minute incidentals, aka a bunch of postcards and then we're having lunch and heading out to Maai Maihu. I love it and I can't wait to see more. Love to all. Kwa Heri!

Going going to Africa

Well I haven't written in a while, and I don't really have much to say now except stay tuned. Saturday I leave for a month long excursion in Kenya and I'll write as much as I can.

The Infinite Abyss

Liz life update.
Everything is nothing. I have all the time in the world and nothing to do in it. I have turned doing nothing into a full time job. I can literally force myself back to sleep for two or three more hours just so I have less time during the day to be faced with my own reality. I have walked out to my studio numerous times and just stared at it. Stared at the paints and the ink, the pencils and paper, the paintings half finished and the projects half started. I want so much to create. To be able to use this time to my advantage. But my heart tugs me deeper and deeper and I can't do it. I cant pick up the brush, I cant. Or I won't. More likely won't. I started meditating again and can work at that day by day. hour by hour. While sitting there I find images floating into my mind that I linger on although I know I shouldn't. Mostly places I slept while I was traveling alone. There is the one room in Dharmsala. My perfect space. The place I close my eyes and go to when I want to remember being most happy. I remember shitholes near bus stations with monstrously large bathrooms and bags of noodles. Creepy lofts in North Thailand where lots of reading was done. Hostels in Athens with their loud streets and bad internet.
Where I am now, these all feel like make believe.
But in my reality. In my head. In that meditation time, I sit with myself and know they were real. I know I was there, me and my head. Me and my meditating. I remember every place I ever sat for an hour in silence. But I can't remember what my dreams are.
I can't remember what I am passionate about, what I want to do with my life. What I want my life to be. So I drown myself in television and sleep until the long day is finally over and I can sleep again.
I believe they call this depression. It feels like depression. I feel like that little circle who bops around too sad all the time. Or the robot from Hitchiker's Guide to the Universe. My mom gave me a psychologist to talk to. I might have to do it. I'm out of ideas and I'm losing days faster and faster.
I fell hard in Roller Derby the other day, knocking the wind out of me and seriously smashing up my shoulder. I do a great job of kicking my own ass.
I found out today that another friend died.
And its spooky and surreal and of course what the fuck.
Jared, Jen's first and I'm pretty sure only love. The first boyfriend that mattered. Jared was in a head on collision in October, one month after Jen died and was in a coma for three weeks before passing away. Jared was in his twenties.
I sat there on the phone when i found out just fuckin shell shocked. First of all that another young, kind, loving person has died far too early. And two that it's Jared, so soon after Jen.
I talked about Jared with Jen when I saw her last in India. Their love was a fated one. They met and connected like magnets only a few months before she was supposed to leave on her Bonderman fellowship. I remember thinking then how fucked up it was that an awesome girl like Jen and an awesome guy like Jared had to meet then. And that they only had a short time to be together before she left. Turns out they each just had a short time to live and be awesome before the fates wiped them out.
But I'm a firm believer in loving what you have when you have it. None of this, 'I don't want to miss you or I don't want to get hurt when you leave' bullshit. They took what they could get. They spent their time together and they loved each other for as long as they could. And Jared even visited Jen in Honduras in the first year of her travels. But as it was things couldn't hold up to such time and continental divides, and they had to go their separate ways.
But when Jen and I talked she talked of him fondly, she did love him and always would, if she ever came back to America they would maybe figure it out. But she was living her life in South Africa and Jared was living his in Seattle. I know a lot of men fell in love with Jen while she was gone, but I'm pretty sure Jen loved Jared more than any of those hot Brazilians or charming Brits.
Jared was a vegan, a carpenter, an avid bike rider (even up all those Capitol Hill bitch ass hills) a musician and a good man. With a really good beard. He loved Jen very much. As I know she did him. I remember one time when Jen and I rode bikes to meet Jared at a bar in Ballard. Jen and I were early and turns out at the wrong bar, buut it was a bar, so we started drinking a pitcher anyways. After the pitcher was gone Jared kindly told me that Stella, actually was NOT a vegan beer, as they filter it through fish bladders. But that he didn't want to tell me until after cause he hated when people did that to him.
That was the last Stella I ever had. But it was damn good. Ignorance is bliss. Thanks Jared.
Also the amazing Halloween night out Jared had some insane WWF costume on that I had no idea about. Cause I don't know shit about wrestling. But he looked incredible. And crazy. Fit in well with a crazy afro hippy lady, a unicorn, Larry David, and John Waters.
I am saddened to learn of his death but in a weird way it seems too close to be a coincidence. If I were religious I would picture them up in Heaven drinking union and vegan beer (aka Budweiser)and eating vegan cupcakes that Jen made. And being happy. Being as I do not lean religious I'll just think of them as together again, in some alternate universe where the young get to live their lives and where people who love each other get to be near each other.

Sab to the Rina

Four days after Jen died so did Sabrina.
Twenty four years old as well, she died on a Wednesday.
My best friend all through high school, glued to the hip. I remember ten years ago meeting her, almost to the day... Braces and curls and catholic uniform in Mr. Nick's history class. And that was it, for the next five years you couldn't tear us apart. Sabrina and Liz. We began to dress and look and talk alike. We were those annoying girls who couldn't stop giggling when together and you would never know why because we had too many inside jokes. We slept in each others beds, drank each others orange juice out of the carton, walked into each others houses without knocking. We made mixed tapes and videos and music together. If I went out of town for a week I would get letters and calls every day detailing even the most minute of events. We went on vacation together, to each others house for Thanksgiving and for family dinners. If you wanted to date one of us, the other better really really like you or you're out. We fell down on purpose, we shouted at boys, we stayed up late. We told each other everything and still had more to talk about. We dreamt about the white 67 mustang we would buy (together, duh) and her dad would fix it up and we'd cruise around as cool as any Rob. We made two person bands even though we both sucked at our instruments. We jumped into fountains and ran into bushes, we kissed boys and we cried about high school. We called in Limp Bizkit requests to KRZQ, and ate peanut butter and jumped on the sofa! (j/k we would never jump on the sofa)We would ride to school together and then call as soon as we got home to talk about what funny stuff happened after we got dropped off. We would watch movies like it was going out of style. We played soccer together, we tried to be track and field discus throwers together. We went to Palm Springs and wore matching sequined butterfly shirts on the strip. And sang karaoke. We had the same favorite foods. We ate fries with Ranch dressing. And drank Dr. Pepper. We were each others ally, we held each other up, we got in petty high school fights and we competed. But we were always together no matter what. Any bullshit could be solved with a Wendy's run and a Slurpee. And Night at the Roxbury. We would make our mothers and our brothers crazy. We had an encyclopedia of inside jokes. And nicknames. And matching outfits. Sometimes people would call us by each others names. Especially(and this was often) when our hair happened to be the same. We dressed up like 1980's bridesmaids and went to homecoming together with Melissa as a threesome of awesomeness. We made up stupid dances to random songs and videotaped them. We shared our art and our deepest fears. We were ridiculous together. We got each other. We shared a sisterly closeness to a sickening degree. Sharing clothes and food and lives. We ran together, we studied together, we partied together. I have hundreds of notes intricately coded written by her during some class or other. (Probably religion) We were so close it was almost telepathic. One look would say a million words. One roll down of a car window, one tiny movement of the face. We never went anywhere without the other one and if we did it was really boring. I loved her and she loved me. Sabrina and Liz, Liz and Sabrina.
I never imagined ten years was all I would get. And not even the full ten.

We began to lose touch one year after I moved to Seattle for college. Something had flipped and she began to find different friends and pretty soon we weren't talking on the phone as much, she wasn't telling me the truth, and our friendship began to fall apart. I last saw her maybe three years ago, and we didn't even have anything to talk about. There was something missing behind her eyes, something she was hiding from me and from herself. That hilarious, unrelenting humour was gone and something had replaced it. She no longer was this amazing girl who didn't care what anyone thought, the girl I loved and grew up with. Her sense of lightness had disappeared. A dark fog blew into her life and never quite left. Everything that had been hiding behind the jokes and the fun was burbling out. She was finding new ways to deal with pain she had been clutching onto for a long time. We lost all touch after a while and that is when I began to hear about the cocaine. I had almost lost a friend to heroine who was lucky and lived after emerging from a coma, she knew how I felt about this, and so she kept it from me. And she kept herself from me as well.
I don't know much about these years, only that they were dark and lonely. I should have been there for her, I should have come home and literally slapped some sense into the girl. But as life is, I didn't. I would change things if I could, and I'll never forgive myself for letting her slip into such a world. But I had to let her live her own life. We couldn't be hip to hip forever.I had my own life too and I had to live it. What can do?

I wrote her a letter before she went to rehab. I knew we wouldn't ever be friends like we once were, but I told her I would love to start over. If she got her shit together. And when she was healthy, when she wanted to, I'd be there, ready to begin a new and different friendship.
She moved to Austin, Texas she went to rehab, and for the past two years or so she had been on the up and up. She had her own apartment, she was finally out of the hellhole that Reno can be, she had a job.

During my year of travel we began to reconnect. I would see some Milk Bar in Australia that reminded me of our obsession with Clockwork Orange, or see some Indian dude in a Roxbury shirt. Or meet another upper thigh toucher, or see something I knew she would love. It was in no way on the level we once were, but it was something. I was curious about her life and was so happy that she finally got to move, something we had been plotting since teenagers. And every now and then we'd throw an inside joke each others way.I was happy, even if it was only an email here or there, i truly missed her and would take what I would get. I had no idea that things were beginning again. I thought everything was fine.
But she began drinking again in the past months and then last week it was all over. One too many things in a recovering body and that was it. I will never see her ever again.
We were supposed to grow old together in Palm Springs and fight over who was the Romy and who was the Michelle.
This is all wrong. None of this is right.
I miss her, I've missed her for a long time, I can only hope that no more follow in her footsteps. I can hope against hope that she is finally at peace. I'll have to live for both of us now. My Sabrina shaped space will always be there. My hilarious, beautiful, bootylicious Sabrina.

If I can't dance...

Jen. One of the most alive people I have ever know, is gone from my life. It takes so much not to agonize and hate and curse the earth right now. She lived like no one I have ever known. A million lives in just twenty four years. I sit here and scream and shout and cry and nothing I do will change any of it. No matter how many times I shout NO, this is life. And life ends.
She died in Africa, she had been gone for two years traveling and dancing and lighting up lives like no one but Jen knew how.
And unlike most who loved Jen and missed her terribly since she left to see more of the world, I was blessed with the most beautiful gift of seeing her when I was in India. She happened to be flown there for work and had just seen the tops of the Himalayas in LeDak. Jen said the air up there at the top of the world was something she'll never forget. So I showed up at her hotel and it was like we were back in Seattle again. Except we had to haggle with rickshaw drivers and step in pishy filled streets and get stared at a lot by Indian dudes. We went to a totally weird mexican restaurant and paid way too much for 'nachos' and she told me tales of her travels. Of Brazilian streets and diving in the bottom of the Ocean and Argentinians who fell in love with her. She told me about living in Africa and about this perfect(if slightly underpaid for how brilliant she is) job she had found and about her recent trip around South Africa. We laughed about the good ol days when we would get off work at 3pm and ride our bikes to Agua Verde and drink margaritas, even if it was the middle of the week. We spent a few days in shitty Delhi, sharing tea and breakfast at her fancy work-paid for hotel. We rented Bollywood movies and tortured her roommate with the four hour long singing romances. Then in the even shittier Pahar Ganj neighborhood where we basically hid in a guesthouse ordering food and watching crappy movies on t.v. and neither of us gave a shit. We walked and walked around Delhi in the hottest heat to the India Gate and then decided we'd rather just sit in the shade and talk. We rode the metro one afternoon for two hours, just because it had air conditioning, and really good people watching. We went to see movies, drink soda and eat popcorn and pretend we were in America or something. Except for everything was in Hindi. We ate snickers bars and spent hours in bookshops.
I feel a Jen shaped space in my life which will be there forever. She taught me to enjoy things, to say fuck the corn flakes and eat delicious breakfast if you feel like it. She was a person who found space for everything and everyone. She could paint some pottery like you wouldn't believe. Jen was sexy in an unassuming way, like she didn't know how fine she was. Jen could party till dawn and still wake up and go to work then write some massive important paper for school. Jen supported herself and she was more selfless than anyone I know. She put her friends first and was always ready for adventure. I distinctly remember her working two or three jobs, a double degree, volunteering for various fair trade organizations, and still made time to go to support her many friends in their lives, go for a beer afterward, and then maybe go to an African dance class.
And probably the best Unicorn I've ever seen.
I sat at my desk in Seattle many a night reading her travel blog and just thinking, Of course- Jen is becoming a dive master, of course she is doing a road trip around the Congo with some dudes, of course she is living in Brazil speaking Portuguese and frolicing in waterfalls.
http://splendidtraveltales.blogspot.com/
When I last saw her she was learning Zulu for fuck's sake.
If it wasn't for Jen, I probably wouldn't have had the confidence to leave on my own travels.
No one I know was more in love with the world than Jen. When she got the Bonderman Fellowship to travel I knew no one more deserving. Jen understood people, she wanted to make life better for as many people as she could. And I know that she did. I for one will never dance without thinking of her, cause this girl could shake it. Especially when you're at a Michael Jackson/Prince dance off party.
This sudden and tragic event has shaken me and I know that Jen would want me to snap the fuck out of my pity party and start living. I'll miss her every day. But I know that from now on, when I paint, dance, or travel- Jen comes with me.

Smells like Sagebrush

It isn't all bad, this coming home business. Reno for example, smells terrific. There's something about the smell of home that really brings me back to reality. Or at least makes me stop and think for a bit. Keeps me in the moment if you will.
I smell sagebrush blowing in the wind, sweet and dusty. Asphalt and construction, the hot exhausting smell of progress. And although I feel I have changed and grown older, some things will always be here, just as I left them. That massive, low Nevada sky that sits on the mountains hanging puffy clouds about town. These mountains, I have forgotton how beautiful they are. They circle around town; golden and violet, deep dark blues behind bright fiery mustard yellow, orange and sometimes rose. The abundant sagebrush is on every hill, every street and fills the barren hills behind my house. Fatty blue-belly lizards slither in and out of the rocks and bluebirds sing their oh so familiar tune.
I went on a walk with Charles wonder dog(who has totally gotten fat and can hardly keep up, even with me which is saying a lot) down my neighborhood streets and hills. The creeks run with cool fresh and probably dysentery free water, cows and horses and sheep hang out in their pastures. I smell damp hay to feed the animals, the rain threatening with the coming thunder storm. And let me tell you there aint no smell like desert rain. The dry wood on the deck, the old oil paint in my studio, ripe crab apples and willow trees. The carpet in the living room, the sandpaper couch, the laundry room. I can even still sense my moms footsteps first on carpet, then on wood, and back to carpet again as she walks through the house in the morning for work. The sticky smell of fruit sugars cooking in the kitchen fogged through the house while my mom made this years batch of crabapple jelly.
Today while I was walking I passed my old middle school bus stop and dragged the garbage cans up the long driveway, I felt like I could be eleven years old again. And just as moody.
I went out this weekend to the Wine Walk. Which is exactly what it sounds like. Drunken traipsing with Kaylene, her brother and a massive crew. Ran into everyone from camp counselors to neighbors to relatives. Reno reno reno. It was nice but drinking at 3pm can only end with a 9pm bedtime, no matter how tough you think you are, the wine walk gets you every time. Downtown is getting it together though, revamping, getting hip, or whatever. There was music down at Wingfield park and the river is looking awesome, and a rad place to hang out for hooligans. It even felt good just to walk those downtown streets. Hear the slots and see the mullets, the jeans and Harley t-shirts, the smell of cigarettes coming out of all the tattoo shops.
This is my home after all, and I do love it for what it is. The sun shines almost every day, everyone talks to you wherever you go and waves at you when you're on the street. I can walk five minutes and be completely surrounded by desert. I can ride my bike, eh thirty minutes and be downtown. I left for a reason and I know that I can't live here forever, but I'm here now and I need to understand Reno for what it is. My home. Complete with laundry machine, comfy bed, fridge with food in it, art studio, drum set and of course my loving family and friends.
I am still desperately trying to pull myself together however.
I go back and forth between Goldie Hawn in the beginning of Death Becomes Her, and Zach Braff in Garden State. Not that good.
I find it hard not to cuddle up on the couch with my favorite mug and watch hours and hours of recorded Entourage. Actually hard is to go through a year's mail, call all the friends I've missed, come to grips with the people I love who've died, update my cv, balance the longest distance relationship ever, and find a purpose in life.
So I decided to roll out. I bought a bus ticket to L.A. and am heading there in two days to see my brother, my aunt and uncle and my grandparents. Then see more friends around SoCal, and then I think I'm going to make my way up to Seattle and maybe to Vancouver. Because I need just a little more time moving before I can totally pause.

Reno... seriously?

I was hyperventilating. I was panicking. I was about to cry. I did NOT want to return to the United States. I kept wishing the plane would crash or I would get detained or deported. But not so much as a flight delayed. Seamless all the way to the Reno airport. I slept none. I watched many movies and listened to the same music for the last time. I wrote and tried to read. I had that garden state feeling where I felt the plane in chaos all around me, yellow air bags and tiny vodka bottles flying all over the place, and all I would do was sit there and stare. I was shaking when the plane landed in SFO. I dragged my iron feet across the airport, coasted through it all and there I was. I had arrived in the United States of America. San Fransisco. Took the BART. Which in comparison to the world is one of the worst public transit systems ever. Eight dollars for a twenty minute ride? I don't think so. And a bus to the Oakland airport. I sat in the terminal where I have sat many times on flights to and from Seattle and stared blankly at the television. I was sleep deprived, shocked and sad. For the first time I saw Obama as actually the President. Addressing the nation about healthcare. I was so tired and wrecked and delirious I could hardly keep my eyes open. No offence Barak. And then I was home.
Melissa and Eric, and my mom and Eric all met me at the airport. A place I have landed many many times, and usually always been happy to be home. To see my family and friends, to be wrapped in that comfortable hometown blanket. Nope. I was and am of course delighted to see friends and family, but I'm struggling with the returning home funk.
And now the other news. So Sean has moved to China. He went there originally for a few weeks cause he got a free ticket and some work. And now has decided to stay and save up money for eh, at least six months. And so the end of my year of travel is the beginning of his time abroad and we aren't in the same place. And we won't be for much much longer. Thus transforming all plans I had for my return home. Opening many doors and closing others, but all in all I am beginning to understand the right thing for both of us. So now my options are unlimited and I can go to Africa, or Spain, or some random ranch in the states, or back to Seattle, or down to Georgia or wherever the fuck I want.
Right now though I don't know where to go or what to do and end up pacing my big empty house in pajamas and spending way too much time listening to kexp and not accomplishing anything.
So I'm gonna bring down my glorious golden bike, I'm gonna set up my drumset, and I'm gonna screen print some shit. And I'm going to try and live and love life as much here as is possible, because its too short to stay in your pajamas all day long.