so..... how long have you been out?

someone introduced himself to me yesterday by saying he was also a "non-traditional" student. we chatted a little, and i asked him "so..... how long have you been out?" and got this blank stare for a moment. i meant " ... of college" but we discovered that's a really funny question.

of course, in my life, there's the " . . . of prison?" version.

and he went on this funny riff about having these feelings in college and it being hard to tell his parents.

law school is gonna be good.

first meeting with my section, the unfortunately-named "c-section" today, then classes start tomorrow. already a ton of homework -- a little scary, the reading load.

yesterday i got two mentions (not by name, but still . . . ) in the class introduction: one for being the oldest student in the class and one in the listing of previous occupations as a professional potter.

setting intentions

i'm not all that woo-woo (as we call it in asheville), but i do believe in setting intentions, mostly because it has had surprising results when i've looked back.

eric and i have moved often enough that we've developed a ritual about leaving one place and arriving in another, and it includes walking back through the time in the old place and setting intentions or stating what we hope for the new place.

for dodge street, we hoped it would be a good launching pad -- yikes! that worked. maybe a little too well! for here, we are laughing that we intend that NOTHING INTERESTING WILL HAPPEN!

seriously, it's a scary thing to put the intentions out there. i used to be scared that they wouldn't be realized, but now i'm honestly a little more scared that they will. i want to do well in school, be a good partner to eric, let the people in my life know that i love them, be centered and choose well, take good care of myself -- those are easy to say. but the hard one is that i most of all want to get better at hearing and trusting that quiet Voice that will Guide us if we let it. that's the scary part, but also the heart of the matter.

today's thought is that i can do this intention re-set any time i like, not just when we move. now *that's* scary!

finding my place, stage 1

so here's what $938 worth of law textbooks looks like:


doesn't look like all that much, does it? they're pretty big books, but still. oh, well, whatever -- welcome to my book locker. required for one class is an "i-clicker" which looks like an early remote control and is a way to communicate electronically with the professor during class (just having an "i'm old" moment).

truth is i'm excited about it all. at orientation next week, one task will be to locate our "flexes" which make up the cornell mail system. i cheated and found mine today. there it was, right there, with my name on it, as if they are expecting me!

went and sat in the carrels today, just to see if i could find a favorite. did the goldilocks thing -- this one's too close to the stairs where people are talking, that one's too close to the whatever machine is running in that corner. but found one. then went up to the beautiful reading room and read there for a while. feels good. feels good enough that i was having a hard time reading, just excited to be claiming such a place.

i know all this is very uncool, but i am really loving it, and eager to get started. life is good and i'm grateful.

this is the way we walk to school

to catch up a bit:

i'm in ithaca, in my new place. eric's in boston in his. law school starts next week.

law school classes are typically divided into sections of students who take all of their classes together. here, these sections have letter designations. mine is the unfortunately-named "c - section". oh well.

funny: there's someone named eric johnson in my section; i wonder if i'll ever call him the right name.

i'm getting better at facebook, which is how i keep up with what's going on with my classmates as we all get ourselves here. i've gotten my netflix copy of the paper chase -- either alex & christina will come over here or maybe someone on facebook will offer up a bigger screen and we'll go there.

because i'm always more comfortable once i have some familiarity, i walked up to the school today, timed the walk, found my locker (yes, locker. actually, i get 1.5 lockers, one in the library for books, a shared one for my coat & boots), bought my books (ouch), just poked around the school. oh, and got yet another mmr shot -- keep your vaccination records, kids.

one of the best things: i took the pic above on the walk through the gorge on the way to school. as they say, ithaca is gorges.

one good way to meet other law students is to hang out in the law section of the book store.

ithaca is a lot like asheville -- crunchy-granola, massage therapists, the same bumper stickers on volvos and subarus -- but with this serious academic side. i went to the farmers' market yesterday and got good organic stuff. the co-op is good. wegman's is good. my upstairs neighbors are great. everyone walks everywhere.

i'm still getting the apartment settled. on my visit to boston i got some shelves and they are half-painted. i'll put up some pix of the apartment once i find the still-packed-somewhere battery charger and re-juice the camera batteries.

i have moments of panic about whether i can read fast enough for all this. this makes me want to get started on the already-posted homework assignments, the first of which is due in a week. eric thinks this is funny. he also thought it was funny to watch me obsess about which section i was in.

when i came home tonight i saw a sticky note which i'd used in organizing things during the move. it said "do -- less urgent" but when i saw it tonight i read it as "do less -- urgent." i'll take that as a sign for the next couple of days.

tonight i went to the french language meetup, which was fun. i love hearing the french language spoken by native speakers.

i'm tired and full of cheese and creme brulee, so i'll stop now. more soon.

more on letting go

i have to begin by admitting that i'm a hoarder.

a few years ago when we moved and could not take everything, the process of dealing with all the "stuff" was overwhelming. everything i touched seemed to require this enormously heavy multiple choice question:

keep? take to boston? pack in storage?

don't keep? sell? give to someone? donate? recycle? trash?

the task was just plain painful and overwhelming, partly because it was layered with some things i wasn't really aware of at the time.

this time i decided to take seriously the advice on the front of the card christine gave me several years ago: have nothing in your house that you don't know to be useful or believe to be beautiful (or something like that). i thought i'd try it out and see -- well, honestly, i thought i'd see what was wrong with the advice. =)

have to say i recommend it. i learned some pretty serious stuff about myself:

everything -- everything! -- that i was holding onto that didn't fit one of those categories was attached to me by fear: fear that i might need it someday, fear that someone would be upset if i let it go, etc. this means my house (and evil storage units) had all kinds of stuff that isn't useful and i don't love -- yuck!

i might need it someday, sure, but someone else needs it now. i might need it someday, sure, but i can trust that i will have what i need then, same as now.

and about my great-grandmother's whatever or this thing that so-and-so gave me? if i don't love it or use it, i'm just keeping it out of guilt. is this a good way to honor someone? i can offer it around. if no one else wants it, it's ok to let it go to the habitat store. off it goes to someone who will want it.

the other fear thing was about money. i thought i had to get every penny out of things if i could, and that meant this big monster of selling stuff somehow. paralyzing.

instead i put a few things on craigslist and sold most of them, but just let the other stuff go. money or not, it was really fun when things found a good home, and it has been amazing to see that happen -- people with some need turning up at just the right moment, people loving something i was ready to part with, etc.

and i'm free. freer anyway. i do wonder what it would be like to own nothing, but i'm not there yet.

at this point, i've cleared two (yes, two) storage units, the pottery studio and eric's office. all that's left is at home and the stuff is flying out the door.

everyone (including me at times) is sort of waiting for the crash, since i'm pushing pretty hard here, but what seems to be happening is that it does take energy to walk into all this, but there is also an energy boost that comes from getting free.

anyway, i do highly recommend taking a look around to see what stuff is in your life and why.