Confused Precipitation

3-05-2010

These cornflakes that lie on my spoon as I type this are delicious. I just came to the realization that all I’ve eaten today is an amazing green salad, some bread, a heavenly cappuccino, and these cornflakes. I was planning on waking up at 9:30am this morning. I finally rolled out of bed at 10:30am. We agreed to meet the girls for lunch at 11 and then go meet some of my students at 1 to go to an art museum. Waking up at 10:30am was a problem, because it would take at least 30 minutes to walk to the café. So the story goes something like this: The girls were going to be late and so we decided to meet at 11:30am. I left the apartment at about 11:20. Problem. Steven doesn’t like cafés so he decided to stay back and do some shopping at the bazaar. I told him that he could have the cell phone, but he insisted that I take it because he obviously has the gift of foresight. I walked to this café before and navigated through the city with mastery after staring at Google maps for about 5 minutes. Today however, my mastery slumped. I was walking and enjoying my walk quite a bit. There is something about walking through a foreign city by yourself. It makes you feel as though you are in a real story, on a real adventure. I guess as I was off in my own daydreams plodding along the sidewalks I walked past the street I was looking for. After awhile of not seeing this street I started going up a random street thinking that I would find the other street I was looking for and get a grip of where I was. So I walked, and walked, and nothing looked familiar until I came to a giant building and this nightclub. One of the previous SMs who has since stuck around, lives in that nice building and I recognized the nightclub. I also recognized the fact that I was nowhere close to where I had wanted to be. So I called Emily, admitting my failure and looking for help. Of course, Murphy ’s Law set in and my phone ran out of money. Luckily, Emily called me back and took to the streets trying to find me. I finally asked one of the local women which direction Furminova (the street I was looking for) was, but she just “hrmphed” and me and said “niet” (no). I was annoyed with her and kept walking. Emily couldn’t find me. I was lost. I asked another local—a younger jollier looking girl—and she kindly explained where I was and pointed in a direction with a look of uncertainty on her face. I figured her uncertainty was better than my oblivion and I trekked the direction she said. Anyways, after walking a ways back I realized that I was still lost and I started to get angry at the girl for pointing me in the wrong direction until I realized that I was on Furminova. Then, Emily called and I was still lost. She said I was supposed to be on certain crossroads and on these crossroads I was—but the café and familiarity were both out of sight. I finally realized that the café was a block below me, Emily found me (thanks Emily!), and after a long day on the streets, I arrived at the café. The only problem now was that it was 1:00pm and I knew my students and Steven would be waiting for me. Another problem was that I didn’t have anyone’s number so there was no way to explain what just happened. I sat in the café feeling helpless—like there was nothing I could do. After sitting for about 20 minutes groaning from my helplessness and from the tiredness of exploring what seemed to be the entire city—I finally got a call. They of course wondered where I was at and I had to explain. To shorten the story I will say that I ended up getting frustrated, feeling tired and hungry, and just told them to go without me. I went back in the café, ordered my salad and my cappuccino and my world started to look a little brighter.

I had to hop on a bus, go back to my apartment to grab some stuff and meet Yelena (she forgot we were meeting), and then run back to NewBridge for Friday club. It started snowing on me as I walked hurriedly to NewBridge. The snow, however, was wet and I couldn’t tell if it was rain or snow. It was what I deemed—confused precipitation. I couldn’t help but marvel at the fact that the weather couldn’t make up its mind. It was like looking in a mirror. I’m at a point in my life where I am constantly changing my mind—I’m confused. Sometimes I am determined to snow while other times I feel like raining, what results is slush—and nobody likes slush.

I’m not going to lie; I sort of enjoyed getting lost. I cherished the adventure and now I know my way around the city much better and have all sorts of new sights logged in the memory chambers of my brain. The only problem was that it wasted so much time that I did not have to spare. I wonder why it is that man is programmed for adventure. I wonder why God put in us the desires to crawl into deep, dark holes and dive to the deepest parts of the ocean and fly to the highest heights of the sky. I don’t exactly know why God made me this way, but I sure do like it. I like adventure. I like reading about adventures and I like living adventures. I think heaven will be full of adventures, much cooler than walking the polluted sidewalks of some foreign city. I think that I might get lost a couple times in the New Earth, but I’ll always have someone to call and come looking for me. And I bet after getting lost I’ll be able to sit down and have a cappuccino as I write about my adventures. It’ll be a blast!