Due to an unfortunate turn of events I have been diagnosed with a medical condition that makes it virtually impossible to walk and I am currently experiencing the worst pain of a lifetime. This condition has made me unable to go to class and say goodbye to my family of peers and wish them luck and happiness on all of their journeys. This has also stopped my travels to Portland until any sign of recovery is better, and seeing as to how I am in and out of the emergency room every week, I do not have any idea when that could possibly be. I am extremely saddened by this because now my plans will have to wait another two to three weeks (if I’m lucky), and seeing so many pictures of my smiling classmates in beautiful places makes me wish that I could be in my own beautiful place. At least I have had plenty of time for some reading…I am currently on Chuck Palahniuk’s novel: Fugitive’s and Refugees: A Walk in Portland, Oregon. As always, Palahniuk never disappoints. He is an incredible writer, one of my favorites actually, so when I learned that he had written a book about Portland I was very pleased to learn this.

This is the last I was able to post before I had to spend the next month of my life in and out of the emergency room/hospital. I have to walk with a cane and have felt extremely isolated. I look at my classmates with nothing short of complete and utter admiration after this incident (well, even more so). There are so many different types of travel, and whether it’s somebody pushing you in a wheelchair to be able to go outside and smell the sunshine, or whether it’s getting on a plane to Spain with nothing but twenty dollars and a one way ticket, travel is something that we experience every single day, even in the smallest ways. Sadly, I will have to change my musical city to Seattle (a place in which I’ve been raised for a good majority of my life). I know plenty about Seattle and a lot of its nooks and crannies so let’s keep our fingers crossed that I will be able to get to as much of it as I can as I recover. I am extremely grateful to be coherent enough to write this post, however I am also incredibly distressed not only because of my lack of posts, but because I feel that I do not have enough to post about! I know that those feelings are just me invalidating myself but I just wish I could have been able to get on a plane and go make a new, exciting, and temporary life somewhere like my peers were able to. I will admit there is nothing more calming than closing your eyes and imagining your fellow classmates landing all over the world and leaving their mark like falling stars where they land. I am grateful that out of all the cities, I will be able to explore one that I am extremely familiar with, and one that I feel welcome in. I will be exploring Pike Place Market, various parks, but mostly just wandering the streets and looking for the friendliest faces. I am so grateful every day that I have been given the opportunity to recover and get at least a few chunks of this project done. I am sad to know how much I have missed, but I know that once I am back and listening to everyone’s presentations, I will feel as if I were right there experiencing everything new with them. I will be changing my reading list and trying to include videos of buskers and if not videos then pictures if that is what they are more comfortable with. It’s really insane what life can throw at you, sometimes. Throughout my surgeries and time spent in the hospital everyone would always ask what would I do because I was missing so much school? And every time I would always answer that I was blessed because this half of the quarter was dedicated to exploring cities around the world and what they have to offer. I have never been so proud to call myself an Evergreen student and I look forward to posting much more.