springtime of my loving.

its official.  spring time has laid its blue sky hands over our lil' mountain town of durango, caressing us all into transition... time to bloom ladies and gentleman! welcome to (as i borrow words from robert plant and jimmy page) the springtime of my loving.  winter has finally thrown up its white flag of surrender- despite its rather measly attempts to keep us inside this year.  everyone is out and about-adorn in big grins and flip flops and skirts.  i just stepped outside to help coach little adorable children in petting my dog, and it seems that my heart is stuck in this warm place.  was florence right? are the dog days really over? couldn't be.  how could i possibly be comfortable in my body? how could i possibly be comfortable in this place where i feel happy and secure in my heart?  i'm excited to go in the field you say? its all so new.  perfect timing-spring: new beginnings, opening and closing of doors, finding moments of elderhood and feeling like a newborn all at once, the ending of one lifetime and beginning of another, old and new friends coming out of the cracks in the sidewalks to remind me of my roots, and what i lost and what i found.  i think i might be more than a little grateful to be alive right now.  it all just proves what an ally time is for me.  i got to durango, and immediately freaked out because of all the change and differences, and almost moved away.  "but mountain bike season is about to start," said my body, and "i feel at home here" said my heart, and "i don't care," said my irrational mind, and "stay for a second, relax, settle," said many voices of reason that i am so lucky to have in my life, "you are strong, it is going to be okay."  and so here i am- sitting in my favorite coffee shop, watching the sunshine from inside, tracking, keeping my ear to the breeze, basking in my lil' love affair with myself for just a moment.  and thus ends this episode of 'here is my heart on a platter for you to munch on.'
much love.  

still searching.

Its Valentine's Day, and I find myself sitting alone in my room, with not much more than a couple of dogs to love sprawled out on my bed.  My room is filled with things that I am too scared to unpack.  Did I really want to commit to being in Durango for a year? I am just not sure.  Good things are happening though.  There is no doubt, magic is unraveling right before my eyes, the same way the Animas Valley lays out its red carpet for the mountains to the north.
I just spent about half a week in the field, working my Jedi mind tricks and allowing students and parents to stroke my ever-forming ego.  For lack of a better adjective, it was awesome.  It is true, the desert has indeed been calling my name.  My urge to rub my face in the red dirt below my feet has finally been fulfilled, and my heart has finally released its lamenting song as I slept beneath a waning moon and watched the sunrise on a sandstone outcropping; my favorite place to watch the sunrise; a place that gives the words, expansive skies, a whole new meaning.
(You will have to excuse me- I have been attempting to add grammar to my blog, (hence the capital letters) and am just not so sure of the correct usage of the semi-colon- currently looking for a class to take to solve this issue and/or open to cheap tutoring.)
I have indeed had a love affair with the desert.  The pinion and the juniper trees have swooned me into wanting only the smell of sage on the breeze.  But alas, I cannot shake my feeling of wanting to go; wanting to keep searching, jump in the car I don't have, and keep driving further west.  That way, I can make sure that there is nothing over there that contains the answers.  Because while I did find answers, I didn't find the answer buried under last autumn's maple leaves, and while I did find answers, I didn't find the answer in the depths of the sweet warm pacific, and while I am finding answers, I am still not finding the answer in this bosom of plenty where the mountains and the desert meet.
I guess the important thing is, I have started singing again, and there is no one around to tell me to stop.  

wedding, roots, and milagro.

so this is the ending to one of the best weekends i have had in a long time.  its sunday, so i can't stop humming a familiar grateful dead song, and its the day after my sister, allie's wedding, so i can't stop replaying the evening over and over in my mind.  girl can throw a party, there is no doubt about it.  in few words, the wedding was fabulous.  allow me to lay out the scene.  two windy dirt roads led us to the little Sleepy Hollow Inn in Huntington, Vermont on January 27th;  a super small, family owned inn surrounded by cross country skiing/mountain biking trails (which may open up the possibility of a summer time visit for me!), and accompanied by a beautiful round barn with huge windows that frame the view of Camel's Hump, the mountain that we all scurried up as little ones, when our feet were growing so fast that we got a new pair of hiking boots every year.  there was an intermittent dusting of snow (which sounds really romantic, and maybe it was more like random patches of ice), and intermittent snow flurries (not to mention the night of rain) to boot. the bridal party- which included bride, groom, moms, dads, groomsmen, bridesmaids, dates, wives, girlfriends, and more stuffed ourselves into the little inn, all the folk who went stag slept three to a room and the couples were assigned little cozy love nests.  the weekend started off with a night of karaoke, and new fun fact about megan-i apparently really love karaoke.  After witnessing a completely out of tune "sweet caroline" and belting out janis joplin's "piece of my heart" and consuming what seemed to be about 25 glasses (they were very small) of wine, we concluded the evening gathered around an ipod and speakers talking about modern timeless music, and what its like to love to sing and not care what people think.  
the next day was THE day.  the day allie has been waiting for, and the day her older sister has been patiently awaiting amid curiosity, excitement and quarter-life-crisis moments.  for lack of a better adjective, and because my head is still swimming in tequila, the day was beautiful; the picturesque round barn was beautiful, the bride was beautiful, the ceremony was beautiful, and all the attendees were beautiful too.   and not only was the wedding chock-full of dancing, laughs, and a very short, lacking in passion, and mildly abusive love affair with milagro tequila, it was also a really beautiful reminder.  a beautiful reminder of where i come from.  i came from that day.  i come from the people who showed up and have always been, and will continue to be witnesses of the lives of the campbell girls. i come from witty sarcastic dry and hilarious comments, from sweet libations in the middle of winter time, and from the lack of shame in what its like to belt it out and shake it on the dance floor.  i come from countless winters in vermont, fireplaces and borrowing my mother's boots to go outside.  i come from my three sisters.  what a blessing.  i come from an extended family that is mostly not related by blood, but by love and unquestionable bonds, and from hair tugs and finger traps from those who are related to me by blood.  i feel most comfortable marching around in the cold in a flannel and ripped jeans, and i enjoy sleeping until at least 8 when its below 40 degrees outside.  woodstoves are one of my favorite things in the world, and so are dads.
so i guess everything that i am getting to here, is a big fat thank you to allie and josh.  thank you for creating and believing in magic.  thank you for taking me back to my roots (somewhere along the way, i lost touch with them).  thank you for introducing me to beautiful new family, and beautiful new friends, and creating a space where almost everyone we know and love could get together again and realize that we don't want to do this just once every 5 years because its too important.  life is too short.  most of all, thanks for believing in love, and having faith enough to take the risk.  it gives me hope and brings me joy.  you are both beautiful.  and thank you for giving me the opportunity to be a witness and a part of it all.
many many blessings to the bride and groom and all of the attendees! love you.
              

first run in about three weeks

hello friend. i seem to have forgotten about you.  i got swept up in what its like to be in new hampshire at the end of january.  long shadows, the sun not peeking its way into my east-facing window until 8am, family time, laughs, tensions, differences, the cold that has always bit me right on the end of my nose and the points of my cheek bones.  but today-as if i had my phone on me for the first time in weeks- you called me, and i responded.  bottled up, used up emotion, energy, muscle memory, and someone else's i-pod helped as well. i hit the ground running.  thanks for calling.  you have seen me at my worst- tears, fears, anxieties sitting on my chest like bullet proof vests, and my best-smiles stretching extra close to my eyes, skipping-jumping-bursting-exuberance.  i have forgotten about you, i have abused you, i have been really ungrateful for all the opportunities you have provided for me, and yet, you're still here. waiting for me. always ready to let me at it.  

it turns out that running in 30 degree weather has its own perks.  its energizing in a different way than the hot sun beating on me, or the moist air settling on my skin-the wet suit of sweat i wore in hawaii.  here, my skin is all dry afterwards, and my lungs hurt a little bit, my muscles and joints feel a bit confused, AND the amount of ALIVE i feel is unlike anything else.  

so thanks again.  thanks for always being there.  thanks for clearing my head and my heart.  thanks for allowing me to notice that there is a sidewalk on the road that i have driven down for the years in a fitful tearful  teenage fury unable to get to the ocean fast enough. thanks for the reminder.

today i ran to the ocean on the other side of the world.  the other ocean.  the cold cold atlantic, that i once ran into and submerged myself in late october, and let. go.  

    

     

thank you

i am at the point of no return when it comes to starting where i left off the last time i signed on to this thing.  for starters, it is 5 o'clock right now and pitch black outside.  that's right, i have left the most remote archipelago in the world and am now sitting in a creaky study in the northeast corner of our country, the seacoast of new hampshire.  its amazing how much lower the light sits in the sky on this end of things... in hawaii we are only about 1500 miles away from the equator, here, the miles seem immeasurable.  i have gone from bikini bottoms and airy shirts to tearing through my 13 year old sisters closet in search of a warm hat, and gallavanting down the streets of cambridge for a pair of closed toed shoes that doesn't cost me a fortune (and doesn't look like the geeky purple pair of tennis shoes i was running in just a week ago in only a sports bra).
yes, it all seems like a distant dream right now.  hawaii.  does it really exist?!  am i really so lucky to have just spent the last three months of my life there?! it feels surreal, undeserved, a mere story i made up in my fruitful imagination.  it was truly a place of healing for me.  so i wanted to write hawaii, the goddess pele, the ocean, the raw black jagged truth that is the energy vortex of the place i just became so intimate with, a thank you note... (these tend to be my favorite ones to write!) so here it goes!
i apologize if i have left anything out. and know, it wasn't all peaches and cream... ha!

dear dear dear hawaii,
where to begin? i feel infinitely grateful to have spent the last three months with you.  to start off i would like to thank you for challenging me.  for cutting up my feet, making me question what it really means to be grounded.  for throwing all mother nature's elements at me all at once; for overwhelming me with emotion; for helping me feel what it really means to be lonely; for sucking me into the womb of darkness, my eternal introspection where my self-critic feels oh-so-comfy and the black dog is fed;
thank you for providing me with fertile yet rocky unforgiving ground for growth.  for retribution from myself and the smoky tortures of my mind; thank you for aiding me in the discovery of distraction and the opening, healthy, hearty, laugh-at-myself-moments.  thank you for providing me with perspective.. for drawing me so far away from all my different families, that appreciation no longer has the same ring to it as it did before, endless gratitude and new eyes are more like it. thank you for introducing me to new family.
new eyes.  thank you for giving me new eyes.  for allowing me to re-discover the magic of snow falling, fire places, and scarves, and what it means to spend the holidays with my sisters; i dont know if i will ever spend another christmas so close to alone. 
thank you for allowing me to swim everyday.  to exist in prayer and meditation.  to be quiet and contemplative without over analyzing.  to be nice to myself.  to begin to learn to know what it means to embrace my big hips and on-the-thicker-side-thighs.  thank you for teaching me the art of relaxation.  of introducing the possibility that maybe wherever i am, really is where i am supposed to be.  patience.  truth.  the mending of a broken heart. 
i promise to keep learning the hawaiian moon calendar.  i promise to keep in touch with family there.  i promise to take what i have learned with me.  i promise to work on coming from a place of gratitude and forgiveness, and to continue practicing what it means to live with aloha. 
please know that i walk forward balancing on the fringe of knowing my own strength and beauty, and i will humbly accept any more challenges you can throw my way.

much love in prayer and gratitude.
aloha,
mc   

a sure sign that you are beautiful ladies!

the other day i had a funny experience while planting lettuce.  my new friend ken, the owner of the farm i am working on, was going on and on about himself... talking about how he is the epitome of cute, and how he has to fend off the ladies, and bla bla bla.  and i dropped all the lettuce i had in my hand, ready to nestle its little roots into the freshly tilled earth, and said, "how am i ALWAYS surrounded by men with exceedingly large egos?!?" at this he laughed, and said, "because you are beautiful and strong woman, and it is hard for the meek, or undeveloped ego to tread among you, how could they feel confident about themselves?" and while i am totally open to the meek and undeveloped egos, i suddenly realized that maybe he had a point.  as hard as it is for me to say that i am strong and beautiful, it was a delicious slice of potential truth. 

so that being said, if you ever find yourself in the back of an old beat up toyota landcruiser somewhere in the middle of the desert behind two men talking so highly of themselves that you are unsure opening a window would help you breathe, think, maybe its because YOU'RE beautiful!

ending with excitement

this last week has been really beautiful and grounding.  it was my first christmas away from my family, and it some ways that felt really relaxing and stress-free, and in other ways, i really really missed them.  oddly enough, none of my sisters went home for christmas, except for the one who lives there, so it was a very different experience for my parents indeed.  christmas is always a hectic time for the campbell's (which seems to be the across-the-board-experience for most people experiencing the holiday seasons with their families) so i am hoping that since all of us have a year off, we will come to really appreciate being together in years to come.
christmas eve we decided to hike to where the lava is flowing.  kiluaea is one of the most active volcanoes in the world and it is forever birthing this crazy island, and at the moment it is spewing hot magma lava all the way down to the ocean.  so a couple friends and i made it there for an epic hike on christmas eve.  it was quite the experience.  it started off pouring rain with a consistent headwind of probably about 20 mph, relatively brutal, and then cleared up for a while, allowing us to make a good chunk of the hike with dry weather.  we watched the sunset over the black pahoehoe lava.  pahoehoe is the smoother kind of lava from flows that happened years ago, so they are all dried up, and this is what we hiked on for the entirety of the time. this place made us all feel as if the whole earth was pahoehoe lava, black and barren; it becomes all you can see aside from the cliff that drops off into the ocean and the hillside that the flowing lava brandished its thousand degree signature.  it was like taking a trip to mordor and back, except this time we had to hike back out, there were no giant eagles to swoop down and save us.
at one point we were face to face with all the elements, rain was spitting all over us, and we looked down, and could actually see the glow of lava flowing between the cracks of the earth we were standing on, as the wind howled a most mournful song.  it would get extremely hot in places like this, and we would go in search for more solid ground.  it was crazy to actually feel the earth forming beneath our feet, i mean literally the ground did not feel solid, and for certain, it wasn't.  eventually we hiked onward through the night, constantly searching for solid ground, a little stability to place our feet, and rest our hearts and minds.  making it back to the road that led back to the car felt like a god-send. it was a most un-grounding experiencing, and at the same time, i was super grateful  to have made the trek there and back with good company, and experience all these elements that are made by earth.  it was a good reminder of how small and relatively insignificant i am as a human, and in some ways, how utterly powerless i am to the ways and the forces of the world, and how important it is to show respect to the ground i tread on, because by-god i am grateful it is solid.

this week the farm has been so mellow.  i feel so grateful to have had the opportunity to live and work on the farm.  life is so simple.  talk about finding zen and peace in the simple things, "chopping wood, carrying water." i love and will truly miss my little life and routine i have going there.  i work all day,run, make dinner, tea, and maybe a treat, process macadamia nuts, dry bananas, and am in bed by 9:30! only to rise again at 6:30 and watch the world turn light every morning.  AHH! i love it.  i needed some grounding quiet time, and i have received it.  it reminds me that i would love my life to be like this at some point, with added community, and maybe a bit more action here and there, and a few people to share it with, and definitely no lettuce.

i am taking off for molokai on monday.  i am doing a workshop with the ho'ea initiative.  they do a lot of wilderness awareness workshops, that often include tracking, nature awareness, cultural awareness, and some other primitive skills.  i am excited to go and see how it feels to be involved in something like this.

i am continuously trying to figure out what the next step is for me.  is it school of some sort? more travel? a perfect job hidden somewhere? a diamond in the rough.  i feel really ready to put my energy towards something that is sustainable for me and that i feel passionate about.. but what could this be? i am trying to stop searching so much and just relax into whatever my life has to offer me right now, despite pressures from my parents, my sisters, and pressures from myself.  because they are undoubtedly there.

either way, i am really excited for this workshop.  i am excited to go to boston and see rose.  i am excited to be around my family.  i am excited to go to allie's wedding and watch her put her faith in love.  i am excited to go back to durango and work for open sky again, and sleep outside.  i am excited to maybe buy a house plant-probably a succulent of some sort but a house plant nonetheless.

i love being excited.