12:26 a.m. (a note about The July Project)
What a long day I've had. This morning I awoke to Renee Montagne informing me that a terrorist had driven a bulldozer into a bus in Jerusalem and killed three innocent civilians. When I checked for more details online, i learned a woman saw the bulldozer approaching her car and threw her baby out the window. She was crushed, but some passer-by caught the child and he survived. Remarkable and devastating.
Later in the day, I came one step closer to officially having plans to go to Israel. Isn't it insane that a country where citizens are not shocked by such violence because it is a part of the tapestry of their lives is also a place where millions of Jews around the world enthusiastically want to travel? I think it is a bit mind-boggling. Regardless, I'm going to Israel in August for a work assignment and am so thrilled about the opportunity, both for the work and the travel. It's certainly one of the biggest perks of writing about the Jewish community.
I spent the evening packing a variety of T-shirts, skirts, dresses and various other acoutrements into a duffel so that when 2 a.m. nears I'm ready to throw my stuff in the car with a bunch of other people and head to Quincy, Calif. for High Sierra Music Fest. Anyone who read my post from last year's festival will remember I described it as the best 4 days of my life, so it follows that I'm über psyched about this year's fest. But at the moment I'm just exhausted. So my enthusiasm is a bit muted. We're leaving in the middle of the night so we can get to the festival first thing in the morning and get a sweet camping spot. There will be 15 of us living it up in tents and at various music stages this weekend.
In the "Creating a Life Worth Living" class I mentioned in my last post, our homework is to do one of two things. A) Journal ideas and/or emotions and B) Take 15 minutes each day to think, breathe and accomplish nothing. That might mean lying down with your eyes closed, listening to music, strumming your guitar (not that I do such a thing) or sitting in a chair and staring out the window. I find it a eautiful coincidence that my independent writing project (inspired by one class) docetails with the homework for this other class I'm taking. So while I'm gone I will freewrite in my journal at least 15 minutes each day. I may or may not type up those entries... I tend to write more personal thoughts in my journal simply because of the completely private nature of the process, and so I'm not sure I'll want to transfer the ink to the Web. We shall see.
My cat is sleeping on the foot of my bed. His front paws are stretched out and his nose is resting between his "arms." He's so big that when he stretches he's more than half the width of my Queen bed. He's always been long. But now he's also fat. The vet told me 2 months ago that I needed to feed him less, but I haven't yet changed the way I feed him, so he continues to eat whenever he pleases and therefore plump up. My goal is to put him on a diet after the chaos of summer fades. He also totally knows I'm going out of town. He's highly attune to luggage (I shit you not the second a suitcase is opened in any room in the house he's jumping inside and wiggling around to find a comfortable space), but I think in addition to his adoration for luggage, he knows it's a sign that people are shifting. I always feel bad when I leave for consecutive days because he sleeps on the pillow above my head, and when I'm gone, he gets no nighttime affection, which I think makes him really sad. Nothing is better for my self-esteem than when I come back after being away for a bit, and he is super snuggly.
OK, I'm exhausted and saying nothing of value. I'm going to take a one-hour power nap before we hit the road.
12:42 (16 minutes of writing)
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