Veea Da Qui

After much anticipation, Michael and I have finally arrived in Steuben, Maine. The farm is beautiful, the family is great. Ella, the eldest of the three girls, knows so much more about living organically than 99% of the adults I know, and she is just a few days short of 13. It’s fairly intimidating.
Myah, or Miah is it? She is rambunctious, and funny. A sweetheart with a hefty appetite for blueberries. She is very curious and inquisitive. Her and I should get along just fine.
And then there’s little Margaret May. I’d say she’s about 6 or 7. I already love her to pieces. She’s quirky, and I can tell she’s a beautiful little handful.
We haven’t really gotten a chance to talk with Lisa yet, as she’s crazy busy with a 4-H show, but luckily there’s a weathered wwoofer, Eileen, who has been showing us the ropes.
The farm is, for the most part, a goat dairy. I’d say there are close to 30 goats, 16 of which are producing milk. We learn to milk later today, but we received our first lesson in “barn clean-up” this morning, which is simply a nice way to say “poop-scooping.”
Our room is a loft, which you have to climb a ladder to get to. It’s cute and cozy, with homemade quilts and barn wood floors. So far we really like it. It’s a good bit of hard work, and early hours, but it’s interesting and different. And we’re interesting and different, so it’s a good match.
That’s all for now. Hopefully there will be pictures and excitement posted later on this week.

The flight is booked. We chose our seats, studied carry-on regulations, coordinated flight/bus schedules. Everything is officially set in stone. And my ankle is still swollen. This Saturday is my last day of work and Michael and I are hoping that a month of rest will do the ligament damage some good. I have been calling off work a lot lately due to other illnesses (migraines, stomach flu… etc) so my ankle has been getting some much needed rest, which serves as the only plus side of puking my guts out. We were looking at pictures of Bar Harbor and the surrounding areas where we will be visiting during our stay at the first farm. Excited doesn’t even begin to describe us. My heart literally beats faster when we look at the bay, the cliffs, the open sky. It’s been so long since I’ve been in the country. Life in this town has gotten a lot older than either of us noticed. This month is a busy one: Annie, Jon, and Michael’s mother all have their birthdays before we leave on the 29th. My cousins Chris and Tiffany both have their birthdays, along with Tiffany’s baby shower, within the next few weeks as well. Then there’s my birthday on the 12th. We don’t have a free weekend until five days after we arrive in Maine. We are looking forward to being completely alone- for the first time since we started dating. Free from the eyes and whim of his family, my family, our friends. Just completely alone. You know, aside from 50 goats and a family of three little girls and their mother, Lisa. Excited doesn’t do this feeling justice.

Sometimes it feels like the closer you get to the shore, the stronger the waves get, creating a whirlpool that sucks you under, gets you off track, tires you out. 
Michael lost his job last week. We can’t afford the wedding.
We’ve officially postponed it to November 19, our original chosen date. We’re not even exactly sure how this is going to help, as we’re leaving for Maine at the end of next month for a 2-month long unpaid apprenticeship at a farm in Steuben. Our way of rationalizing it is that even if we have to charge it, we’re avoiding 800 dollars worth of interest that we would have incurred if we were to do it next month, as we had planned. 
We were so close. 
I don’t understand why things never work out for us. Nothing ever seems to be in our cards… but we’re fighters, you know. Maybe we’ll just find some post-it notes and a black marker… maybe we’ll just draw our own cards. 
Aside from the wedding fiasco….
A lot of other decisions have been made since our last post. The most spectacular of all is that we have chosen to move to Tolleson, Arizona at the end of the year, for a 6-month stay. We were invited by my cousins, who I used to live with last year, to stay in their guestroom while we save up some money to continue our farm-hopping endeavor. Our flight will be heading out on December 28th, just in time for New Years…. and what a beautiful new year it will be… We will be visiting the grand canyon, Fresno, the San Diego Zoo, and Tombstone. Oh, Adventure.
 
Eileen, Michael’s sister, is getting married to her beautiful girlfriend Megan, on June 3, 2012. We will be arriving in Wilmington, North Carolina, that week to celebrate in their commitment to each other. Then a week or two later, my cousin Andrea, is marrying her boyfriend Jon (it’s about time!) in Pittsburgh, so we will be flying home for a few weeks to share in that celebration as well.  

We’ve got quite a few trips coming up. I’m excited for our lives to start, even if it’s not in wedded bliss just yet. I’m already promised to Michael. I can wait a few months to make it official. 

June 3, 2011

Fionn Regan has become some sort of a comfort to me these days. Michael too, it seems. We’re learning to sing Abacus. Well, I’m learning to sing, he’s learning to play. I feel that’s some sort of metaphor for our future. Me being more voice, him, more action.
I’ve been drinking only lemonade lately. Eating mostly lemon yogurt, lemon cake, lemon slices. It’s summertime, and yellow things seem appropriate to fill yourself with. I wish I could bottle up sunshine. Imagine how yummy a glass of sun would be. I’d serve it with ice, and a slice of lemon.
Liam Thomas was born on the first of the month. He was two weeks early. He’s mine and Michael’s first nephew. We sat at the hospital for six hours before he finally arrived. We waited anxiously outside the door while we listened for Liam’s first cries. Michael got teary when he held him for the first time. Michael gets teary a whole lot, though he’d never admit it. He prides himself in the fact that he hasn’t cried since 2007. I pride myself in the fact that I cry nearly every day.
Last weekend, we slept in a tent in my parent’s backyard. We talked of secrets that we before left unspoken. It felt good to let things out, underneath stars. We woke in the morning and our backs were sore from the rocks and clumps of dirt that stuck up through the tent floor, and the layers of blankets that we rested on.
My little sister turned ten last week. I made her a two-tier neon orange and blue cake, covered in mum-cookie sprinkles and white swirls. We got a flowered table cloth and water balloons, a bon-fire and little skateboards. Michael sprayed the girls with the hose, and gave them piggyback rides across the backyard. This past week has made both of us want children more than ever, but waiting is a good idea. We want to see the world first.
Or at least some of it.
My ankle has not gotten any better, and due to spending cuts, I got denied my health insurance. It looks like Aleve and ankle braces are in my future. At least until we come back from Maine… The tylonal seems to be helping a little, and on days when it’s not humid or raining, I can get away with a few hours without my brace on. It scares me how bad it gets sometimes, especially because the x-ray didn’t come up with anything. I’m trying not to think about the fact that this could last forever, but it’s already been nearly three months since I’ve walked without pain. But like I said, I don’t like to think about it.
The wedding plans are coming along beautifully. Michael got his tux yesterday, and I brought home my dress. The rings are being picked up tomorrow, and I’ve been designing the invitations, covered in daisies and clouds and yellow. We’ve decided to get little metal tins, with yellow stickers and white vines on top for the wedding favors. We don’t know what to put inside them though. Perhaps we’ll make candles. If anyone out there has any suggestions, I’m listening.
Not just about the wedding favors either. About anything. I’m the type of person that needs to be told what to do, or I’ll just sit around and think and write and drink the sun.
Michael is 100 miles away right now, with Liam and Annie and Jon, and our sister Eileen, and her girlfriend Megan. I wish I could be with them, but I’m here, trapped in this quiet house, alone, waiting for 2am to come, so I can get out and go make cookies and pies and cakes. Tomorrow is a Saturday, and I love Saturdays. Saturdays mean that I can see Michael for four days in a row. This week we are opening our Veeah De Qui etsy shop, with little antiques that we’ve purchased over the last few months, that we no longer have room for, or use for, as we will be homeless in three months, and don’t have a backpack big enough for a picnic basket full of  photo albums and old records.

I wonder how long we’re going to be away when we leave. Or if we’ll find somewhere that feels like home and end up staying there forever. Perhaps we’ll find home for the first time in our entire lives.

”I hope that happiness finds it’s way to your little house.” – Fionn Regan.

Everything can change in a mere thirty seconds.  One wrong turn, and you can end up lost, delayed, expired. One slipped word can ruin a relationship that took years to create. And one crooked step can mess up your future.

I’ve had issues with my ankle for years. But it hasn’t been until lately that’s it has given me trouble again. This time it’s bad. Ligament damage, arthritis. At least that’s what they’re thinking. We won’t know for sure until they look a little deeper. They say physical therapy will be my best case scenario. Surgery, my worst.
You can’t really run with a bad ankle, can you?
Or maybe you can.
Or maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and it won’t hurt anymore.

I used to be a cutter. Not too many people know that… but I needed a way to get past that time in my life, so I found a new way to let out my frustration, a new way to take control of something….  I started to cut my hair off instead. And since I met Michael, who told me once that he wishes that I’d stop doing that, because he’d love for me to have long hair at our wedding, I’ve started dying my hair when I feel like exploding. Now, when something goes wrong, you can bet your bottom that I’m going to have black, purple, red, pink hair in the morning. With that in mind, you can probably imagine that my hair is covered in goo, chemicals right now.

I found hope in the fact that I will be getting away from here soon. And I will not let my body fight me again. It’s done this too many times before. My head, my heart, pack up, detach, but my body doesn’t want to leave. I think I use this analogy so that I don’t have to admit to myself how sick I always seem to be- so that I can imagine myself as three separate people, Mind, Body, Spirit. At least I can be 2/3 healthy in that scenario.

We had planned on doing this before we met- working, running, disappearing. Both applied, both accepted, but things didn’t work out the way we’d hoped.
And thank God they didn’t.
Six months later, and we’re planning a wedding.
Michael proposed to me on December 24th, 2010. In an empty apartment, with a red balloon and talk of making ginger babies. The ring? 1940s vintage, five small diamonds in white gold. The answer? “Yes.”
The date is set for August 20th, 2011. That’s the day we’re promising forever to each other. Our wedding is to be a small picnic, with only family present, and two or three close friends. And I’m wearing my mother’s wedding dress.
Another date has been set as well.
On September 1, 2011, Michael and Katee… Kalanonvicz… (yes, that takes me back to the giggly days of elementary school, testing last names with my first…) will be leaving on a jet plane to Steuben, Maine, for our first season of farm apprenticeship.
I’d originally planned on going to Alabama, Michael, to Hawaii. How Maine became an interest, I’m not sure, but the host family seems enchanting, a single mother, along with three young girls. We’ll be learning the art of cheese-making, as well as blueberry picking, and tapping for maple syrup.
I’ve always been a runner. Those around me can vouch for me. Michael, on the other hand, well, this will be his first time away from home. I’m excited to be part of his first real adventure.

This will be a journal of our first year of life together.
Our mundane, single, suburban lives will be coming to a halt in four months.
We will be together, and we will be alive.

Veeah Da Qui.
Away From Here.