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Tuesday, May 31, 2016

OTTILT May

Here's the likes for May 2016:

http://ottilt.blogspot.com/2016/05/may.html

Also, I hope to post some more birthday and graduation pics before Sunday; so stay tuned.

Sunday, May 29, 2016

Pic a Day - 5/23 to 5/29

Mon. May 23, vegan birthday cupcakes
Tues. May 24, succulent (a birthday gift from Nicolas Fierro)
Wed. May 25, the Dimension cast takes a quick lunch break
Thurs. May 26, I'm liking this new look...
Fri. May 27, family dinner at Thai Vegan (with my mom's brother, sister-in-law, and mother)
Sat. May 28, today's the day
Sun. May 29, graduation brunch party winds down

Sunday, May 22, 2016

Pic a Day - 5/16 to 5/22

Mon. May 16, fraying
Tues. May 17, dappled sky
Wed. May 18, selfie with Peachy the tiny tiny house
Thurs. May 19, the daisy patch
Fri. May 20, Albuquerque Bernie Sanders rally
Sat. May 21, Dad and I visited a "tiny house" for sale in Santa Fe
Sun. May 22, inscriptions

Thursday, May 19, 2016

Farewell Moments


Dear me;
Don't worry about how many yearbook signatures you get. If you get a hundred, fantastic. If you get zero, wonderful. If you get anything in between, that's perfectly fine, too. But, really, it's not about lines that someone scribbles on a page in a book you'll forget about in ten years. What matters are the moments that someone shapes in your life. These are the things you'll carry with you. So instead of immortalizing signatures, I want to imprint on you these moments. I don't want your feeble memory to lose its grasp, and I can't trust it to hold on indefinitely.

One;
A friend of mine recently suffered an injury at the hands of a machine, in which her hair got sucked into a fan and caused hair loss, damage to her scalp, and a minor concussion. This accident occurred on a Friday, and she was out of school for a few days, returning on Wednesday afternoon and easing herself into the schedule of presentations. We got a fifteen-minute break to go outside, walk around, get some fresh air, and I was initially going to go with another friend to adventure to the xeriscaped courtyard-garden behind the science building, but my injured friend couldn't walk very far distances or very quickly due to the minor concussion. So she and I meandered around the grass, searching for the owlets and otherwise leisurely walking around across from the library. It was quietly memorable because it seemed so normal and natural, but tender at the same time. Also, the dynamic was very different than when someone had run up to her and given her a hug when she saw her and others chattered away about what had happened while she was gone. My relationship with her is a lot different. Initially I was upset with myself for being aloof when she arrived, but our short perambulation reminded me that this is where the value in our friendship lies.

Two;
At the all-school awards ceremony on Thursday, the headmaster listed the several teachers that would be retiring after the completion of the current academic year, and I was surprised to hear the name of my United States history teacher from junior year. Once we were dismissed and everyone was leaving the gym, I saw my former teacher sitting a few rows behind where I had been seated. I approached him, and he smiled his crooked smile and stood up. We shook hands and I congratulated him on his retirement, admitting how sad I was that he would be leaving, but he assured me that he would still be involved with the school as the football coach. We seemed to shake hands for a lot longer than was typical before releasing our grasp. He asked me where I had decided to go to college, and after remarking on Middlebury's academic reputation, he mused about my going to "the wilds of New England." He congratulated me, and I congratulated him again before I continued on my way. I was glad to have had the opportunity to talk to him, because he was my favorite teacher from junior year, and in asking him to write a recommendation for me, he has been more involved in my college search than any other professor of mine. Also, I had bade farewell to a retiring former teacher at the end of junior year, and it was nice to be able to do that again, especially since I'm moving on to new journeys in my life as well.

Three;
I did a lot of gazing out the window during presentations on Thursday, and a patch of daisies underneath a cottonwood caught my eye. I didn't have my camera, and we had to go to the awards ceremony, so I reminded myself to head back down to the library after school to take pictures. As I walked across the football field and the track, I snapped some photos of the sky, the clouds, and the trees, and when I ducked around to the side of the library, something in me ached. I felt some reflexive expression from this quotation: "I hurt.... It's a good hurt, though, the wonderful, beautiful hurt called love where your heart breaks in a second and is mended a million times over in the next, where an internal flame scalds you thoroughly from the inside out and then washes you clean of the burns instantly." I walked through the thick grass littered with tree debris and weeds, marveling at the tall flowers as they stretched up proudly and drank in the sun. This was a corner of the library I had walked by a few times but wasn't particularly familiar with. It felt secluded, yet the simple, natural beauty emanating from it overwhelmed me. I identified with that quotation because, all of a sudden, a nostalgia had come over me. Even though I hadn't visited the niche before, a yearning filled me, a yearning to not leave yet because I still had more to see, to discover, to explore, to cherish. I recognized and embraced my whole-bodied connection to nature and the Earth in those moments.

Sunday, May 15, 2016

Pic a Day - 5/9 to 5/15

Mon. May 9
Tues. May 10, favorite passage from this book

Wed. May 11, a lantern on inside the (tiny) tiny house
Thurs. May 12, not sure how the movie will compare (there's my house in the background)
Fri. May 13, come in...

Sat. May 14, a neighborly chat (yes, I was spying)
Sun. May 15, ant on my shoe

Sunday, May 8, 2016

Pic a Day - 5/2 to 5/8

Mon. May 2, sick day = vegan chocolate mousse
Tues. May 3, scouring through my brother's questionable Lego collection
Wed. May 4, Mom's initiation to vegan baking (& delicious cookies)
Thurs. May 5, the sustainable home building store
Fri. May 6, vegan shepherd's pie
Sat. May 7, tiny house model day 1: framing
Sun. May 8, tiny house model day 2: bathroom + kitchen

Sunday, May 1, 2016

Pic a Day - 4/25 to 5/1

Mon. Apr 25, sketching interiors (the kitchen)
Tues. Apr 26, scouting tiny-house sheds, pt. I
Wed. Apr 27, one boot at a time
Thurs. Apr 28, (mine's the upside-down one)
Fri. Apr 29, at my friend's brother's 12th birthday party
Sat. Apr 30, scouting tiny-house sheds, pt. II
Sun. May 1, jagged peaks through clouds