AfricanKelli

« Home

A bit of time wandering the Desert Botanical Gardens as the sun set is exactly what I needed yesterday. And of course, with a wet winter, mild spring and warm weather upon us, the gardens couldn’t have put on a more vibrant show to welcome visitors. When people say the desert is so drab and olive, I wonder if they are really looking? The purple undertones of cactus, the coral orange edges of aloe, the fuchsia blooms, red poppies.

Yes, there is a lot of sage green. But no one wears camo to the prom. And the desert right now is dolled up, happy and looking like she’s about to be crowned belle of the ball.

~K

Cody came to town this weekend, which meant a visit to Tucson to see our grandparents.

(Obviously, he spent a lot of time on his hair prior to this road trip and dinner. Also obvious, my grandparents couldn’t have cared less.)

Whenever we are in Tucson, we have to swing through his favorite pizza spot — No Anchovies. He was sad he no longer had the “buy 1, get 1″ coupon books from his UofA days, but he still happily wolfed down several slices.

Any time I can get with my brother, I’ll take. I adore him. And I also often want to shake him. So goes the sibling relationship.

~K

I have a couple friends who stop by here solely to see what I’ve been reading. We swap email regularly — what’s on your nightstand? What have you heard is good? What is your book club’s selection this month? Can you believe they are releasing this?

When a new coworker and friend recently put “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” in my hands and declared it “his favorite book of all time,” I took note. This friend recently returned from 27 months as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kazakhstan, where he said his two significant pastimes  — other than surviving the typical below freezing weather and doubling up on wool socks — were drinking and reading. He was averaging 2000 pages a week. This, after finishing at the top of his class as an English major at Boston College. When someone with that kind of hunger for literature hands you his favorite book and instructs you to immediately make time for it, you do.

I did.

And oh, if he wasn’t right.

Michael Chabon has both inspired and ruined me with this book. On one hand, it is so incredibly well written, entertaining, educational without being pedantic. He makes me want to drop everything else I’m doing in my life and study words, writing and language. I want to write like this more than anything else. It’s truly brilliant.

On the other hand, the next book I picked up — which isn’t a bad read — is so boring! It doesn’t have the same verve. I have this intense love of  for Garcia Marquez, Courtenay and Kingsolver too. They are just so very good, everything else is a bit dull by comparison.

En sum, Kavalier and Clay are cousins who create a series of comic books in New York City. En largess,  it is an epic 600-page story about war, faith, revenge, art, survival, love, loyalty and family.

One of my very favorite passages:

“At the same time, as he watched the reckless exercise of Joe’s long, cavalier frame, the display of strength for its own sake and for the love of display, the stirring of passion was inevitably shadowed, or fed, or entwined by the memory of his father. We have the idea that our hearts, once broken, scar over with an indestructible tissue that prevents their ever breaking again in quite the same place; but as Sammy watched Joe, he felt the heartbreak of that day in 1935 when the Mighty Molecule had gone away for good.”

Five out of five bananas, absoloodle.

~K

Juliann and I jumped at a recent Groupon to take a trapeze class in the east Valley. Fresh off the airplane, I met Julez for the class, more than a bit nervous. What if I got up there and couldn’t make the jump? After seeing Min’s video from the same class, I was pretty sure I’d set myself up for yet another situation of “what have I gotten myself into here…”

What I got myself into was more fun than I’d had in a very long time. It was screaming, exhilarating, heart-pumping, adrenaline fueled FUN. I jumped, I flew, I swung and then I giggled like a little kid watching Juliann doing the same:

Rinse and repeat. We did this for two hours until we were so exhausted, we hurt. It is a remarkably good workout, in part because your heart is pumping so fast. I am bruised from head to toe from landing on the nets and my feet are sore from climbing the little ladder. All said and done, I’d do it again right now if I had the chance.

This was called “the catch.” And while I wasn’t able to swing around and grab my own swing again mid-air — I was really happy to have caught the other trapeze guy.

While watching others take their turn, an elderly man sitting next to me who had brought his granddaughter, received a call on his cell phone that was the icing on the cake.

Him: “You’ll never guess where I am?” (in a slow, loud, elderly drawl)

Caller: wahahwahwahwahwaha (Charlie Brown’s teacher’s voice)

Him: “I’m at the trapeze school with Jasmine. You know. TRAPEZE. T-R-A-P-E-E-G!”

And of course my sidekick in this latest crazy adventure and I finished the morning with a much deserved brunch over continued giggles and slaps on the back for our new-found love of yet another bizarre sport.

Try Trapeeg, friends. You’ll love it. I couldn’t have scheduled a better way to rebound after a long couple of days of work and travel aggravation.

~K

Food voyeurism — a new photography genre.

~K

Time with Finny at the spa + pool in Scottsdale — heaven.

~K

When you take census of the things you own and the things you are willing to move 1000 miles, you are reminded of who you truly are. Our things, especially those of which we are unwilling to part, define our values. We’ve voted with our wallets. These dishes, this piece of art, this bike. They each have a story.

Part of this move is to pull myself from the vain and excessively materialistic culture I find myself so attracted to by working in north Scottsdale. BMWs, fancy designer bags that cost twice my mortgage, prescriptions to grow eyelashes longer and plump lips. Being a part of this life is my default. It’s where I find myself without any work. In fact, it feels great to walk into a trendy restaurant wearing designer jeans and having a great pocketbook tucked under my arm and diamonds in my ears.

Like these things tell everyone in the room I’m successful. I’ve made it. And really, how silly is that? My heart could be as tiny and black as the Grinch’s, but with the right clothes, I’d feel noticed and admired.

This isn’t who I want to be. I need a shedding of skin  — to remind myself of the values that made me the weirdo through primary school (save the trees! recycle!) and in college (why blow dry your hair when you can spend that time reading/hiking/looking at the clouds?). Of course, with a change in jobs and income I’ll no longer be shedding that skin with a fancy spa treatment, so much as a homemade sea salt scrub.

Who do you want to be? Exactly who you are? If so, my hat is off to you. Each day I awake and think of how I could have handled the day before a bit better. What I could have said differently, how I could have acted a bit more gracious. I often hear from friends, “I don’t know who I want to be when I grow up.” Never mind most are in their 30s. We aren’t a lost generation so much as one that wants to balance luxury with meaning.

I want to be a woman who is confident without a mirror. One who regularly volunteers. One who always makes room for others in her home and at her table. One who gives generously and doesn’t care about her car because she’s on her bike. One who can get along with her mother no matter what, because for heaven’s sakes — I’ve only got one and she is dang special. I want to eat less meat, grow more of my own food and have a home that reflects a family trying to tread as lightly on this sweet earth as possible. I want to be confident in sharing my faith with others when they ask. I want people to know I’m a Christian by my actions — and I want that to mean something good and honorable in my community.

I want to spend less time navel gazing (ironic, on a blog) and more time photographing life.

(And I kinda want to change the world, so I’m going to start with mine.)

Too much? I dare say not.

Letting my homemade, optimistic, hippie freak flag fly,

K

This weekend I ran the inaugural Mountain to Fountain 15k with a team of friends, aptly named “Natalie Merchant and the 15k Maniacs.”  The race started in the McDowell Mountain State Park and finished at the giant fountain in Fountain Hills. While it was a “net” downhill run, there are several considerable hills and it was one heck of a run.

I had more fun with this race than I’d have had running in a long time. It renewed my love for the sport; I can’t wait to get through a cortisone shot this week in my heel so I can get back to distance running. (Add that to the list of sentences I never thought I’d say.) Everything about this race reminded me why I like distance running: the variety of participants, the glorious scenery, the repetitive one foot after another, the battle of your mind vs. the pain, the powerful surge for the last half mile showing you can run farther and faster than you ever thought you could. There is nothing as sweet as being stronger — both mentally and physically — than you thought.

I finished smiling knowing I couldn’t have run it one bit faster or smarter than I did. That in itself was a complete victory.

And who doesn’t need the occasional win?

Thanks to my compadres, the Maniacs: Juliann, Adam, Dave and Octavio. And the mystery member of our team who signed herself up obviously because of the rad name. Whomever you are, we salute you — random Maniac. Also, many thanks to Kilimadog for photographing and driving.

~K

P.S. Lookie who surprised me at the finish — Finny! Such a good supportive friend of crazy athletic endeavors she is.

Hiking in South Mountain this weekend with a friend, there was little color. The desert is on the cusp of blossoming, but isn’t quite there yet. We had to find hue where we could:

I am going to miss my desert, especially the smell after a hard rain, the saguaro blooms in May and the cactus wrens. It is such a harsh, strong, gorgeous landscape.

~K

“Hey! Maybe you’ll wake up with a bit of bravery tucked in your pocket tomorrow.”

I spoke those words this week. Bravery doesn’t come easily.

I recently failed at being courageous when I woke up in the middle of the night in Malawi to an animal being attacked nearby. My heart raced as I lay under the mosquito net, the piercing cries of the house cat echoing in the otherwise quiet night. Was it a snake? A rabid dog? I thought the noise was coming from the veranda — pitch black in the African night. I threw back the net, and raced in my pajamas to help. Adrenaline fueled, I threw open the bedroom door to alert someone — Matt, his family, anyone asleep on the other side of the house — when I realized, in fact, the attack was not happening outside, but in the room I just entered.

The dark room.

The dark room with a very peculiar smell and an eeriness that made every inch of my body lurch. I spun back into my bedroom, slamming the door behind me. As soon as I was safely back within the light, with the door closed, the fight continued. The poor cat was fighting for her life in the adjoining dining room — but I didn’t know where the light switch was or how to get anyone’s attention on the other side of the house.

How did the attacker get into the dining room? Could it get in my bedroom?

And I knew one thing for certain — I was not brave enough to go into that dark room and save the cat.

I tucked my yellow belly back into bed,  shaking with fear and nerves — my terror of snakes running rampant. By the time the sun rose, I’d fallen back to sleep. I’d meant to stay awake until the moment I could rush to the other side of the house for help, but I crashed. By the time I got up and found Matt’s mom — she was entirely confused at my worry. She’d woken to an open kitchen window and a couple animal “accidents” on the dining room floor, but no blood.

And no cat.

It took a while for the house kitty to return, but she did. With tufts of her fur matted, she sauntered back into the living room one afternoon. I nearly cried with relief. I was convinced she’d gone into the jungle to die after I’d failed to save her from the mysterious boogieman. The little warrior had survived again, more than likely an attack from a village cat that had climbed in the kitchen window looking for a snack. Once I realized she was fine, it was me who left the room with my tail between my legs.

I always eye dare devils with suspicion, wondering if they actually like life. It must be easier to take sweeping risks when what you have isn’t so precious. My move to Colorado in April is about as brave as I’ve been in the last 10 years. It isn’t like moving to Cameroon to live in a village hut, but it is fully challenging my routine and comfort. I hope becoming a bit braver is just the first of many great changes.

~k