a bit of what's swirling around in me

I'm just continuing to put off the Barcelona update, so I'm thinking it probably won't come at all. Interested readers are going to have to suffice with the account of Monday unless I decide to write about it in the future. However, exciting news, my Barcelona photos are now up on my flickr site. I was looking through them last night as I put them all in their set and realized that I doubt many people will be excited about some of them as I was. It makes sense as I was taking the pictures that I would take shots of things that fascinated me, so I'm curious as to what must go through others minds while they look through my photos. I love them however and get extremely excited when I browse them.

Two nights left. Wednesday afternoon at 2:20 Spain time, I will be on my way to London. I still haven't figured out what I want to do in London during my night there. I was ecstatic about seeing the Design Museum again only to find that it will most probably be closed by the time I could get to it. So, I find myself browsing the internet for ideas of my night in that city I love so much. I'm anxious to get home. I very much dislike this waiting time. I feel like my innards are twisting every which way. Goodbyes and I are not good companions. I was thinking this afternoon how much I dislike closing a chapter of my life. I never feel that way when I'm reading a book. I'm always very excited to hit a new chapter, taking in its title and wondering what things will enfold in its parts that make it worthy of a whole new section. I should be viewing my life like that, I guess; and yet, I don't recall reading a book where a chapter ends and the character leaves behind a lot of other characters who were so important for those few pages, but will fade into the long list of people from other times. Its inevitable I guess, the people who have become very dear to my heart and shaped each day I spent in Spain are suddenly going to vanish from my days despite a few e-mails here and there, that probably won't last very long. Those who have kept with my blog for a while are probably thinking, "Gee, she's really bipolar with this pining for home sometimes and now sulking that she is leaving." I assure everyone, including myself, that I'm not. I never really pined for home - yes, there were nights were I dreaded my house and nearly panicked at the prospect of more time alone - but those were a very small ratio in the whole of my time here. And I'm not sulking about leaving, not a bit. I'm very ready to clean my house, pack my suitcase and sleep with my pillow at home in KC. People are just so hard to leave.

Almost completely unrelated topic now. I'm reading this book called "Letters to Karen" which I was drawn to simply because it is practically my name. I felt very silly about this, since that isn't how I spell my name, but saying it and allowing myself to think that this book is particularly written to me by some misguided person who just hasn't figured out my name - the book got me. It is a lovely book. It is a compilation of letters from a minister to his daughter a couple months before she got married. (Don't anyone jump on that one for I will gladly knock any notions from anyone's heads that that is a far thing from my desires right now!) But this book is full of thoughts of what marriage really is, what love really is and the not so fairy-tale life that is. I have found it very interesting as I've been searching a lot this summer in Spain for whom I'm supposed to be as a woman. I've been afraid of that in the past, but through wonderful people like my dear Dani and Tracy B. I've become courageous about it. "Let Me Be a Woman" by Elisabeth Elliot furthered my ponderings this past semester and now I'm just enjoying gathering thoughts and hints about what a mystery life really is.

With all that seemingly mushy nonsense written, I must say that I'm also reading "The Pilgrim's Regress" right now and greatly enjoying the philosophical battles I've encountered there. Somehow relating that I'm not just dreaming about being a girl makes me feel better. Perhaps I'm not as courageous as I thought.

I'm off to concoct some sort of dinner for myself. Sometimes rambling really soothes me. Tonight is a You've Got Mail night, I can feel it. Packing first, of course.