Thankful.

All my love to the people and experiences that have shaped me, particularly in the past year. I thank Allah for all of the people who I have had the great fortune to brush against in my short life on this earth, whether as friends and family or as those who have touched my life just for an instant. Perhaps I'm getting sentimental, but I feel all of your radiance lifting me up as I continue every day to seek out who I am and who I want to be. Let's carry those intentions far past this one afternoon, celebrating with our food and our thanks, as we continue to brush past each other and shape one another in even our smallest of actions.

On Leaving: Seattle to NYC

A goodbye video I edited for the Washington Bus.

The time has come again for yet another one of my famous exits. The hours are counting down until my flight into hurricane-ready NYC and I am reflecting on every last moment of my summer in Seattle while simultaneously worrying about how my father and I are going to move me into the dorms in a city that is otherwise evacuating its residents. Since it has been quiet around the blog for the past month, those reflections are stored up in my mind, on my journal paper, and in photograph form awaiting upload. In the coming days, I will share all of these with you, dear readers, but for now I just want to give thanks.

When I returned from New York in mid-May, I had a month essentially to myself. I taught myself some marketing skills, spent some time with some amazing high school friends, and genuinely relaxed for the first time in months. It almost looked like I would have a typical Seattle summer - indulging myself in artsy learning opportunities and working through my bucket list of fun things on my own. That quickly changed when I started my job at the Bus.

As I've said in previous posts, my Fellowship with the Bus was honestly one of the best and most connective experiences that I've had in Seattle. For too long, I have felt that my hometown had nothing to do and little for me to get involved in; through the Bus, I have become more connected to this place than ever I could imagine. I have commuted to the city at all hours of the day and night, spent time with more amazing people than I thought possible, and explored enough events and locations to know the best and worst spots from here to Kirkland. In essence, I got exactly what I wanted: to connect back to the home that I thought I would never return to. And I am immensely grateful for it.

That feeling, that connection, makes this moment peculiar. I am sitting in a coffee shop on Capitol Hill contemplating my summer and all the new faith I have in Seattle in being a place I could spend a good deal of my life in. And yet I am leaving. Back to a city where I am a party of one, where I have had both my best and worst experiences, and where I can no longer communicate face to face with the people I have built strong ties to in the last two months. It is as surreal as it is exciting, as amazing as it is saddening.

I'm going to take over NYC this year. That is the energy that the Summer Fellows and my own new found strength has given me. This summer in Seattle has taught me that fun can be had even amidst tremendous amounts of work, and I am ready to take that philosophy back to Barnard. Tomorrow, I will touch down in the middle of this hurricane fearless and ready for the next big adventure. And this time, I won't forget to write about it.

Thank you again, Summer Fellows, for supporting me and giving me greater power than I already had invested in me. You have built for me a better home in the place I grew up, and I hope that you will keep in touch as we all move forward into the next year.

The Relaxation Manifesto

Something that I have to remind myself of every day I take off: the meaning of relaxation is to not to think about its end.

This vacation has been about that principle in a lot of ways - staying in the present and enjoying the minutes, forgetting (or at least being ok with the idea that) you are skipping work in favor of having fun, mind melding with the random people you meet and not questioning it.
I must admit, this vacation has been a ride of emotions for me. I have felt at times thankful, lonely, annoyed, ludicrously happy, tired, regretful about work, reflective and truly sad. If this weekend was a microcosm for my life, then it did a pretty good job in representation.
As I sit down trying to finish NaNo and thinking about my priorities for tomorrow's work catch-up day, I wonder about why I am so focused on the past and the future. The feeling that I last posted about in The Real Thanksgiving is something that I wish I could commit to, but it has been the hardest struggle just to achieve it for a couple of hours. I am always thinking about the moment that it will pass or change.

Anyway, perhaps the solution is not to dwell on those subjects for the time being. Switching mindsets, here is a list of some of the truly amazing things I did in this short weekend:

1. Finished my alien color scarf (pictured above)
2. Met up with friends from Seattle who go to East Coast schools (and made a new friend out of one of their roommates!)
3. Explored Manhattan at night and walked for hours and hours on end
4. Followed the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade from 66th to 34th street on foot
5. Bought fancy fancy yarn for two upcoming projects (not telling what they are till they're finished!)
6. Ate Thanksgiving dinner twice: once alone at a great restaurant and the second time with fabulous friends from pre-college!
7. Made goat cheese mashed potatoes and pumpkin cream pie (so bomb!)
8. Walked the Brooklyn Bridge from end to end in the nighttime (by the way, whose idea was it to have see-through wooden slats on the Brooklyn Bridge walking path?)
9. Talked philosophy and other hardcore subjects late into the night with AU friend affectionately known as Catskill
10. Spent time eating excellent Bengali food with my friend in Queens

Thank you everyone who made this weekend special and great.

Want to see what else I've been knitting?

The Real Thanksgiving

My real Thanksgiving occurred the day after the "official" date. All the things that you'd want out of Thanksgiving - friends, great food, laughter, and all those things that are cliched and yet so important because we don't get them that often in our daily lives.
I slept in till 11:30am, which was the strangest feeling ever for a college student. I looked up the recipes and picked up the ingredients and put it all together with those amazing girls from PCP (the Barnard pre-college program - don't get gutter-minded). We hung out in Jules' great frat house and laughed about Nina being too Asian while making pumpkin cream pie without an oven. What is better than that?
And I was so happy that I didn't want it to end. And I still don't.
It makes me wonder why we can't have this kind of camaraderie any old time of the year. Are we so jaded by the fact that our work and individual lives are supposed to be all-important and all-encompassing that we cannot enjoy a simple meal together?
I know these are strange questions for someone who is supposed to be starting her independent adult life, but I think that we need our families and our friends more than even the most independent of us think. It's important, and we don't get enough relationship time. Especially in NYC, but just everywhere. This country is made for singletons, but there is something to be said for community.

Happy alterna-Thanksgiving. Let's work on having that every day of the year.

Great friends and great food are reoccurring instances in my life - check out some recipes and restaurant reviews and have a good time.

Thanks for All the Giving

I think that today's title has a double meaning in that we are duty bound to give thanks, but also to thank people for all their giving. Otherwise, the point would be lost. Although we may thank God for our lives and our material possessions, I think that the most important things we can be thankful for are the people around us.
I am thankful for the 3 hour conversations I have with my father at any old time. I am thankful to be able to see my boyfriend 3,000 miles away through MSN messenger. I am thankful for the connections that I made over the period of three days without internet or cell phone at SOCLR. I am thankful for the people who are helping me reach my potential, giving me constructive criticism, and cheering me along the way.
I am thankful for anyone who is there to listen to me. I am thankful for all the people who trust me enough to give me their stories and open their hearts to me. And I am thankful for Allah and his mercy and wisdom, that guide me daily.

As many have said before me today, take pause and realize what you're thankful for this Thanksgiving - relationships, events, items, and whatever else you are most enjoying in your life at this moment. Happy Thanksgiving.

P.S.
The internet is back! And I'm thankful for that, too!

I'm Back...

That was so cliche that I just might kick myself. Seriously.
But, other than my lack of creative entrances, I have realized that the pent-up feeling that I have been noticing recently? Yeah, it's a result of not writing/blogging for a while. And hence, I have (unceremoniously and completely crazily) returned.
As much as all that introspection has done me good, I think that I just need a place to relegate it that's not my own head. When I can come out and say all those ideas that I want, it's just a big sigh of relief. But, before I get into the new mind-storm, here are two articles that I think are fundamentally awesome and I totally want to reference all the time now:

A Guide to Happiness via Self Forgiveness
I'm Sorry, I Don't Know, I Can't...

They are both from the wellness site Think Simple Now, and that place has just a grand wealth of great articles. Anyway, after a particularly emotionally-wracking day, I think it was perfect just to recuperate by realizing that there are some simple things that can make you feel better instead of wallowing around in it. At the end of my post, I'm going to take one of the suggestions from the first article and post one item that I am grateful for.
You know what, I don't think I'm going to recap the past whiles. I just don't want to focus on the past and I want to breathe in some of those things that I've just not been doing (under the pretext of being sick, tired, bored, and/or lonely). So, I will just enjoy my slow return. Here it goes!

I am grateful for...
The ability to walk outside into a hailstorm... in spring.


Check out some more posts featuring my photography.

Do Something Beautiful

http://uniknotions.com/fulldebate.php?debatenum=147 [UPDATE: video has been removed]
I don't know why, but after watching this video I am completely inspired. To do some random things and things that are fun - I think people just don't do absurd things here because there isn't a soundtrack playing back to them all the time. Maybe that's the intrigue of it: make your own soundtrack, your own montage to living.
I cannot believe how grateful I am to be alive.
And I know I wanted to put 'sometimes' after that sentence, but really it is all the time. I know there are a lot of things I don't feel good about here, but at least there are many things that I will always, always love.

What God Has Given Me

I believe I should count what I have received in my life. If I am not satisfied, I have been spoiled too long.
- I am thankful for my family, being alive and healthy.
- I am thankful to live in this country, with a house, provided for.
- I am thankful for my cats, who understand my mood swings.
- I am thankful for my best friends, Kita and Heathy and Chels and Ka-chan, who have been there for me when needed and even when not.
- I am thankful that I get to learn, have the chances.
- I am thankful for my health, my eyesight, and my nearly perfect teeth.
- I am thankful for my passion, the need to write, the opportunity to do so.
- I am thankful for the ability to read and understand.
- I am thankful for my emotions, which range far and wide, from love to tristesse.
- I am thankful for music.
- I am thankful for being able to watch the seasons change.
- I am thankful for being 17 and not dead and gone.
- I am thankful that I can work with my hands, knit, craft.
- I am thankful that my body is warm.
- I am thankful that I can breathe, in and out.
- I am thankful to take yoga, and the venture to unlock myself.
- I am thankful for knowing, for watching the news, for learning the world.
- I am thankful to be introspective; a little girl masquerading in her mother's shoes.
- I am thankful to be able to think about the future.
- I am thankful for photographs, memory books, and the visions of the mind's eye.
- I am thankful for being able to love.