the happening

I am not sure how much of this I will get all down before I fall asleep, but I want to do it some justice, this weekend, and also this moment right now, on account of that it is happening. (...not even sure if any of that made sense at all) 

Okay, so here I am, lying on my futon-bed-thing on the night before my orientation as a University of Ljubljana exchange student. And tomorrow, everything that I've been wondering, all those unknowns from before, it all will happen. 

And in fact, everything has happened. And it is. 

My post on South Africa was about how life got weird because life happened. Like something I could never have expected or thought of in reality, it all became real and immediate and amazing. And that is how I feel now, real and immediate and amazing, because of how I didn't know before and how I am experiencing now. 

So in blog-recap style, here are some photos and some things that happened these last few days. 

Ah. 

Right, well I moved in to my apartment, for starters. This is my totally artful shelf, in good taste of tea and Buddha. I don't have internetz yet (this is being written here but will probably be posted on campus wifi), and I can't find tape to put up pictures and flags and things, but still. It is a roomy and bright apartment and I have some great space on a patio/balcony bonus. So all y'all are invited for dinner parties over at mine. Any time, please. I look forward to seeing how this space will be used, who will be here, what their story is, what ours will become. And it's dangerous because I have this little speaker set for my iPod (currently playing me some Nepali tunes) and the first time James Blake (I mind), came on...it got dangerous. And you know how I feel about being a single person in a double bed....it's either find a single bed or a single man, am I right?! *conspiratorial wink and nudge* *haha yeah okay* although I'm sure I've mentioned just how attractive everyone is here. Maybe I can play the exotic 'Canadian' card. Though I'm not sure how exotic it is, really...hmph. 

Then there was this, Blejski grad, Bled castle. Which is way wayyyyy high up on that cliff, overlooking Bled lake. Really the coolest, and such a beautiful view. ...except watch me say that this whole damn time. 

I can't really capture the colour of the lake, especially on a shitty iPod camera, and especially in that painful way that life can only be experienced firsthand to truly know. We took a boat rise into the middle of the lake to this monastery on an island, where a couple was getting married and everyone was holding hands and doing cute things like rowing row boats and taking couple photos. *forlorn sigh* NAH JUST KIDDING it was fucking cool. And I'm making it a point to return on a bright and sunny and warm day, to soak in the gorgeous blue the lake is on a clear day. Mostly because the water here is literally crystal, and it is so easy to see to the bottom. Gah. Unreal. Except TOTALLY REAL. 

Easily one of my favourite moments (of life?) so far. We pulled over to the side of the road to indulge in a super-Kelly moment of horse appreciation. These creatures were large and steady and blew their sweet horsey breath in my face and I scratched their chin and fed them roadside flowers and walked away with horse dirty hands and even just that contact grounded me. 

My dad, in excellent dad-style, joked about coming to "loobie-banana", being all dad about the pronunciation of places (he still can't say Nicaragua correctly). And then in the hilarity of life, we get this bright yellow car. Thus travelling from loobie-banana in our own GPS equipped banana. The little things...

We drove around Lake Bohinj and up some hairpin turns and then hiked up some forest stairs to this, and life got all gorgeous about itself again. This is the Savica waterfall. There was a group of Canadian exchange students studying in Amsterdam there for a visit. The way they held their cigarettes felt like they wanted to look trendy and weren't really certain about it. Where, of course, was one kid from? Newmarket. As in...20 minutes away from Aurora. As in...small freaking world sometimes. 

Saturday night we returned late and sat out, bundled up slightly, by the river for some late night soup. I left, bussed home, felt the way it will feel for nine months now. 

Gotta give mom some serious credit for coming with me on this week ahead of time. Had to get business done and move me in before we could totally hang out and be tourists about things. Thanks mom. You did me some serious good, in typical mom-style. And because I'm in my selfish twenties and getting my feet beneath me, I will take it from here. "Oooh baby baby it's a wide world..." And it's also a deep world, because then we toured on Sunday things like 

THIS CAVE! 

The postojna caves. Amazing. 21km, 100m underground, and that's just here. 

I know this picture doesn't do it justice, but if you've ever been underground, in any kind of cave-like grotto, I think you'll get what I mean when I say that there is something really poignant about stalactites and stalagmites. Totally in the dark, drip by limestone-y drip, millimetres or less per century, somehow these structures can find each other. And after millennia, sometimes, the points meet and forge this column of stony strength, and no one could ever know. 

     It is like nature's greatest, most patient love story ever told. 

Even if they are only stone. I think that reaching, that eventual connection, nothing could be more heartening as a way to say hey,listen, just grow, okay? And another pillar of strength will find you on your journey, or it won't, and either way look how strong you are. Look how many millimetres you can move and shape this world, all on your own. And no one may see, and no tourist may shine a light on it, but still it matters, in the deep and unfolding and alive ways of this earth...it matters. So grow, take your time, find who and what you will, but grow. 

Ahem. 

Yes, that is indeed a castle built into a cliff and on top of a cave. 

This is not a joke. It has its current face from like 1523 and parts are from the 12th century and earlier. 

The view looks like this

What was that I'd said? Look at that view  and check out that castle? 

BECAUSE LOOK AT THAT VIEW AND CHECK OUT THAT CASTLE. 

My goodness, and this was on a torrential downpour kind of day. 

Then we drove to Italy, Trieste, the Adriatic coast. 

So I was all: 

"ERHMERHGERD IM IN ITALY!" 

And it was beautiful. And rainy. And when I say Slovenian on the signs again I was like wow, this actually looks familiar, all the consonants all the time. And it felt nice, to think that, although everything is still so foreign and unfamiliar. Because this is the beginning, and it is beginning to become something else.  

Because everything I wondered about and dismissed as future is now present, is now happening, and I wish I could articulate better how I mean that. It's like one part excitement for the immediate reality (on exchange, in own apartment, foreign country, not English, what the what), one part -ness for the cozy feelings of correspondence, one part HOLYMOLYIMDEFINITELYINSANE, one part immense happiness about how this is my journey right now, and three parts of inexplicable something about the space in my head, the openness of my heart, the freedom that is floating through my veins and the gratitude that follows, and the astounding-ness of the world to contain so much and allow so much and just be so damn much. 

And it is all happening, HAPPENING, for absolutely real. 

Oh, how good this feels. 

-k