I’ve been back in the country since Monday, so “oops”! I haven’t really bothered to write here. I’m really wiped out and there is just too much to say about Nicaragua than I would want to bother to write in one post. So today I’ll start with this little tid bit:

Malaria pills are making me hallucinate. Okay, not quite that bad yet, but I am having insane dreams. The doctor warned me this might happen, but I didn’t really think the dreams would be that vivid. I started to notice the side affects the medicine was having when I was in Nicaragua. Let us just say I’ve been having dreams that are wildly inappropriate and simultaneously all too real feeling. Granted I was only getting about four to five hours of sleep a night there so that might have been a contributing factor, but the dreams are still happening here at home. And, lucky me, I have to keep taking the meds for four weeks so I can go insane while I’m starting college. I may just skip the last week of medicine to get it out of my system before classes start. If I get malaria because of that, well at least it was in search of a good night’s sleep.  

Reach out, go across your boundaries

Stop hiding in your self-imposed solitude

Time is passing, you cannot grow younger

Only sink into old age with comfort

Accept, take, receive- all that I’ve wished for you

I’m scared what will happen to me if you don’t

But even more of what will happen if you do.

My grandfather designed the house that my grandmother now solely inhabits. As an engineer of his time, the place is practically a bomb shelter with concrete walls and floors. For a place where the interior decorations have remained practically the same for at least the past 30 years, it feels entirely different to me now, about a year and a half after his death. So, dear reader, "This is the house that Jack built".

This is the house that Jack built

Fortress of brick and concrete

Built from Jack’s design

A modern home, a modern family

His place, His time

Fortress of strength and security

Built to house Jack’s own

A place to store and treasure

His family, His achievements

Fortress of time, unchanging

Built for Jack and his One (plus four more)

An empty shell when devoid of

His living, His loving

Finally back from the grandmother visit. If I had all the patience in the world and the desire to drag up painful memories I would relate here the entirety of my cold acquaintance with my maternal grandmother. Being as I do not have such an affected mood at the present, I will discourse on other matters.

Principal of these is that I had the opportunity to see “The Dark Knight”, and upon the occurrence of said opportunity I seized it with zeal.  Truly, truly a great mix of movie tragedy and dramatics, and captivated my imagination enough to stop the nightmares I had been entertaining in the previous three nights of sleep. Let us hope that I can continue this streak through tonight.

I am tired, so I will end with mentioning that I nicked several of my grandfather’s CDs from his collection (as my grandmother has no delight for music, whatsoever). If scary movies cannot fix my dreams, hopefully Debussy can.

Today is my birthday (how thrilling!), so to celebrate I spent the morning raking hay (how thrilling, in an even more sacrastic manner). Anyways, this poem is one that I actually spent more than five minutes on. The last bits are still ragged, but I thought I'd put it up anyways.

Treehouse

This room, a room on stilts

A house built for me, now

Stands beneath tree, green

Light filters from branches

Through the Plexiglas of

Its sliding, dirty windows

Theses soft, grainy planks

Are suited to the whitening

Paint (upon the walls they

Make), they the connection

Of slanted ceiling and floors

Of pine.  My house of tree

Under a pair of cottonwoods,

The guardians of my dreams,

A house that became a home

For one. It holds nights when

I was alone, mornings when

I laughed, and afternoons of

Goodbyes. Now my pair of

Knights with their leaves in

The air above wave to me.

They invite and wave on my

Departure simultaneously.

My house, trapped between

Sky and ground: Leaf and root