Week 48

Day 329: Jul 5, 2015

The valley was cloaked in smoke when I walked out my door this morning. I was a little worried that the wind had changed and the fire was headed toward us. Turns out, basically all of eastern Washington is on fire so we are getting smoke in from other fires. Our fire is slowly spreading in all directions which is good. If the fire had been blown in one direction it would be much harder to control. The fire is doing pretty much exactly what we want it to do.

Day 330: Jul 6, 2015

A fitting poem by Langston Hughes (with a twist I put in myself):

Still Here

been scared and battered.
My hopes the wind done scattered.
Snow has friz me,
Sun has baked me,

(fire has threatened me)
Looks like between 'em they done
Tried to make me
Stop laughin', stop lovin', stop livin'--
But I don't care!
I'm still here!

Day 331: Jul 7, 2015

I LOVE MY CUSTOMERS!!! So a little while back I found out that one of my remediation costumers' wife co-owns a yarn company called Spincycle Yarns. They hand dye all of their wool and have some really awesome color schemes. So my customer told me to look at their patterns and see if there was one that I liked. I picked out a hat pattern that I love and thought he would just send me a digital copy. He just came back from his days off and handed me a kit for the pattern! I was shocked and am truly grateful. I am a volunteer trying to pay off college loans and so don't have much extra money to spend on yarn and a gift like this reminds me that there are wonderful, generous people out there. YARN!!! Plus, it really rained this afternoon. Only for about an hour but they were serious raindrops and only a little thunder so hopefully it was helpful.

Day 332: Jul 8, 2015

The barrier wall on the other side of the creek was completed today!!! It is the most expensive project that you will never see. To celebrate, we put together a mix of songs and spoken word about their time here. It was pretty great. Otherwise today was hot and humid.

Day 333: Jul 9, 2015

I watched people play dungeons and dragons today. It was interesting to watch but I am not sure I really want to play. It is surprisingly complicated. Other than that today was pretty boring.

Day 334: Jul 10, 2015

One thing that really sucks about being on anti-anxiety/anti-depressants is that you rarely can cry. It takes a lot to actually cry more than a tear here and there. When it does happen it is like the flood gates open. You totally lose it. Ever since my teacher died I have felt like I really need to grieve and I am but it feels very drawn out. I haven't been able to just sit there and cry. It really sucks. It also doesn't help that I have other things that are troubling me either. One of my friends here has been fighting cancer for two years now. For a while, every lump he was finding was cancerous until recently. He found a bump that turned out to be nothing a few months ago. He has been cancer free for about a year but he just found another lump about a week ago. He went out to get a doctor to check it out but he couldn't get in to get a CT scan. Luckily, he has an appointment at Mayo Clinic in a week or two with his regular doctors. That was about the same amount of time before he could get a scan here so he decided to wait until he gets home. He came back here because he figured that he would at least be busy and not think about it too much. My fear for him makes me want to cry. The fear and anxiety that he must feel has to be excruciating and would make it very hard to sleep.

Another thing added to my “makes me want to cry” list is that a different friend here just had his girlfriend (who also lives up here) cheat on him with one of the construction guys. My friend broke up with said girlfriend but she wants to fix things between them. The only thing, though, is that she is still seeing this other guy. She is stringing along my friend and it is almost like she is testing them to see who she really wants. It is tearing my friend apart. He is incredibly depressed and feels like there is something wrong with him when the problem is hers. I worry about him, I really do. He is a great guy who is definitely marriage material. I used to have a crush on him before they started dating but had to move on. I just wish there was something that I could do to ease the pain beyond just listening to him. She doesn't seem broken up about it at all and is even trying to squeeze her way back into his life and since he still loves her but feels betrayed all at the same time it is like she is driving the stake further into his heart. It kills me to watch.

Day 335: Jul 11, 2015

Today was an interesting roller coaster. I woke up before my alarm by about a half hour. It was early enough that it sucked but late enough that it wasn't worth it to go back to sleep. So I went to work early which was good because I was able to open early so that people could get coffee before the planned power outage. The outage was about 45 minutes long but it was during my usual quiet time so it was nicely timed. Levi came and visited when the power came back on and played music. It was interesting because I could tell that something was up and when he left he said something about how playing the guitar helped. After work I visited him in his room to ask if everything was ok. I think he is feeling betrayed by God right now. With one of our friends facing the possible return of cancer it is hitting Levi hard. No one deserves cancer especially someone as young or great as our friend and it is hard to face. Maybe it is the part of me that has faith that the bump that they are feeling is nothing that is helping me right now, I don't know, because I should be terrified for my friend. Don't get me wrong, I am still scared but I think he will be ok in the end. Cancer is scary and seemingly can hit at random which is almost scarier. I ended up drawing quite a bit today to work through my feelings of the last few days. It helped but not as much as I wish it did. I also wrote a poem/prose about some stuff but I want to get someone else's opinion before I post it online. I hope next week is better emotionally for many in the village than this week was.