It's been a while. I'm not dead.

It has been forever since I've posted. I am still alive.

Summer has been going pretty well. My life is fairly uneventful, except for job-hunting and writing. Let me know if you want to hire me. My skills include nothing, haha. But really, I can do things like stand or sit or sell people things (probably).

I wish I lived in Chicago. It is so much more lively than Oxford. Even though public transportation hates me and often makes me carsick, I love it. I love how strangers are forced to make eye contact and listen to each other's small talk. It's sad how so many people just look at their phones instead of out the window or at each other. That reminds me of this cartoon I saw.

I have been doing a lot of writing lately because I am going to Portugal late June for the Disquiet Literary Festival in Lisbon. Here is an essay that I just wrote a few days ago. I was inspired a lot by some of my previous blog posts.

Drippy

I remember raindrops. My preschool teacher read us a book called The Adventures of Drippy: The Runaway Raindrop. I was so excited by the idea of a raindrop being alive. It is one of the first times I remember personifying an inanimate object. I’d pick a raindrop and watch it make its way down the car window on a fluid journey. I would follow its path with my finger, leaving behind a trail of clarity on the fogged up window. In my mind, the raindrop was Drippy, but sometimes my four-year-old self decided that wasn’t creative enough. Maybe that raindrop was me, I thought. Maybe I was the raindrop. Even if I didn’t know it at the time, I was projecting my consciousness onto this tiny drop of rain.

Down it would flow, its brothers and sisters flowing beside it. It was like a race with new competitors being added by the second as the rain fell harder. I’d watch it merge with other raindrops and think of how it was like it had made a friend. Or maybe it had eaten its friend and gotten plumper. The bigger the raindrop got, the faster it fell down the glass. Finally, it flowed to the point where I couldn’t see it anymore. I sat up straighter and got on my knees to try look for it on the side of the car, but it was gone. I never liked to say goodbye. I wanted to know where it would go now. I only got to see a tiny fraction of its journey. Inanimate objects deserved my empathy as much as living ones.

When I was five, my kite escaped. It had the face of a ferocious tiger. I didn’t even like the design very much, but once it was gone I was distraught. My mom and I looked for it for what seemed like hours, but all we found was a bit of string. It began to storm. I sobbed as we drove home. Later that night I asked, “Mom, if you lost me, would you stop looking too?” She kissed my head, and laughed. “Of course not.” But I wasn’t so sure. To me, my life was no more important than the life of that tiger kite. It was out in the storm alone. Its pain was my pain.

15 years later, I still look at the rain against my car window, but now I’m the one in charge of getting rid of it. I turn on my windshield wipers, and watch the poor little Drippy’s disappear with each swish of the blades. But I need to be able to see so I can survive. Is my life more important than the raindrops? I don’t like to put myself above anything, but maybe it is true. Could I be more important than another human being? My heart tells me no; every human life is equal, but my brain sometimes begs to differ. The value of a human life comes from how much passion one has. If you are living life intensely and passionately then you are worth all the stars in the sky, but if you just flow along like a raindrop, not caring, then perhaps you are worth less. But who am I to judge the worth of another human or even a raindrop for that matter?

If I’m in the backseat, sometimes I will revert to being four. I’ll be four and 19 simultaneously. I’ll see a raindrop merge and in addition to friendship, I’ll think of sex. Two raindrops become one. The pregnant raindrop might leave behind a small trail of raindrops like offspring. These tiny drops are stagnant for some time, before finally being big enough to flow on their own. I’m still waiting to flow on my own. I need a storm to motivate me and help me grow. Because it’s the storm that forces you to grow, not the peaceful sprinkling spring rain.

Or I’ll think of survival of the fittest, how the big raindrops eat everything in their path. The larger, stronger raindrops move faster through life to reach the finish line first. They’re like the corporate CEOs, the heads of major industries, like Ebenezer Scrooge eating Bob Crachit. Maybe I’ve become jaded. Bah, humbug. My views are tinted by experience like the black tint of my car windows. But four-year-old me still lives inside my chest like a bonsai waiting to burst out.

When I was young I had really bad motion sickness, so often a cloud of Dramamine drowsiness blurs my memories. But one memory is so strong that I can’t shake it. I was in the fourth grade riding the bus home. We stopped in front of the railroad tracks and I told myself, “I'm going to remember this moment for the rest of my life.” And I have. I was so directive and decisive about remembering that it has stayed with me. I wanted to remember how peaceful I was at that moment. I thought that even when I grow old I would have this memory of youth where nothing particularly special was happening. I smiled to myself as we bumbled over the tracks. I remember sitting on that brown slab of a seat alone, unrestricted by a safety belt. I remember.

I think we all need something to hold on to from the past that isn't a big important moment. Sure, I remember my parent’s divorce, graduating high school, my first breakup, or my first kiss. But I wanted something that didn't have so much significance behind it because really most days are just normal, just ordinary. But maybe that is what is most important; not the big events, but the small meaningless moments that often pass away unnoticed.

So there I was, sitting alone on the bus. Other kids were talking to each other loudly and laughing. Suddenly, I felt much older than them. I looked out the window at a tree blowing in the wind and I imagined myself as an old woman, wrinkled and slow. I knew I wouldn’t always be young and mobile. My body would slowly deteriorate. I didn't want to forget my childhood so I tucked away that small moment in my mind so I wouldn't lose that part of myself.

Have I lost that part of myself? I hope not.

The other night I was driving through my old neighborhood when I had a very strong, sudden urge to walk Pablo in my old neighborhood. We needed to walk together one more time before he died or before my family moved away from my hometown. Pablo is a beautiful, slightly overweight sheltie that I’ve had since I was six. He grew up with me. He herded my stuffed animals into a circle and let me cry into his thick fur coat. When I was growing up I used to walk him to a stop sign a few streets over. It was my time to think and unwind, to recharge my introverted nature. Pablo was my silent companion, my trusted friend who bounced happily along beside me. I would look down at him and he'd glance back up at me and smile. For those of you who say dogs can't smile, you're mistaken.

So the next day we took the walk and travelled back in time. It was odd looking at my old house and the basketball hoop I used to practice on back when I was an elementary school basketball star. I’ve definitely lost most of my athletic ability, except for tennis and the occasional run. I saw the divide between our old neighbor’s yard and our own where we once found Pablo in the compost pile. He was covered in rotted fruit and he vomited everywhere, but he still wanted to keep eating the decomposing food. Silly dog.

Pablo seemed to remember the neighborhood. There was a youthful bounce in his step reminiscent of puppyhood. He wore his signature smile with his tongue flopping around. Of course he had to poop and pee everywhere; that is to be expected. It was a much slower walk than before. Pablo is old now and his stamina is not what it used to be. To me, the walk seemed much shorter. My legs are longer now. To Pablo, the walk probably seemed much longer, because moving is much harder for him than it was in his youth.

My old neighbor Max had a corgi named Hannah. I never knew much about Max, except that he would give Hannah several cans of food a day until her belly dragged along the ground. The two of us would stand in a comfortable silence and smile down at our dogs as they played together. It was a running joke in my family that Pablo was in love with Hannah. As we passed their house the gate was left open. I imagine that meant that we were always welcome, even though both Hannah and Max have died.

Pablo barked at a guy on a bike like he always does, nearly causing him to fall onto the pavement. Some things never change, like Pablo’s unexplained hatred for bicycles. I think he might be concerned about people on wheels because it seems unnatural or dangerous. He always gets concerned whenever my mother stands on a chair. He’ll bark and whine as if to say, “Get down from there! You could fall!” He barks when my mom picks me up, maybe out of jealousy or concern that she will drop me. He also barks when my mom dances. This might have something to do with her poor dancing skills, or maybe he is jealous of her abilities. Pablo wishes more than anything that he could talk to us. I can see it in his dark eyes.

 Pablo got two compliments on how beautiful he is from two people I passed. He could use the self-esteem boost since he’s gained a lot of weight in his old age. When we reached the stop sign that had so often been our turnaround spot I felt odd. I couldn’t place the feeling and I still can’t. I’d like to say I felt closure, but I didn’t. I didn’t really feel anything. I thought to myself that maybe I needed to touch the stop sign, to feel the tangible metal on my fingertip. So, even though there was a car there and I was self-conscious about looking weird, I caressed the stop sign pole. It felt rusty and cold. Still nothing. Then I looked down at Pablo. He was peeing on the stop sign. Then I realized this was our territory. His urine marked it as surely as urine could. I didn’t have to feel like I was leaving my childhood behind, or any sense of closure, because our lives were still continuing on. Our past was just as alive as our present and our future. Then I felt a raindrop on my shoulder. It was just Drippy stopping by to say hello.