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Methodic_Madness
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Name: Kate
Country: Botswana
Birthday: 4/4/1922
Interests: Photography, People, green things, walking on the beach, cargo pants, guitars, Thai food, baking muffins, travel, sunsets, and stargazing in an open field
Expertise: Salt Shaker
Occupation: Retired
Industry: Nonprofit
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
9/22/2004
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This is one of those nights where I want to be in someone else’s’ head rather than my own.
When I want to be all sorts of things n this world, yet still be the world to somebody.
When I want kisses and hot cocoa and unfaltering smiles.
My world is so vibrant and scattered that, once in a while on a night like tonight, I envy the person with the “cookie cutter” life who goes about with a sort of mundane expectancy, but, all in all, they are pretty happy with the way things have turned out.
My world at present is a string of undotted “I’s” and uncrossed “t’s” until “xyz” and the end has come and I’m left wondering what happened in the in between and if I did everything A-OK.
Calm down.
Patience.
Trust.
Relax.
These four I need to learn. For now I’ll sleep and have a valiant go at things tomorrow.
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| ¬I wish Kevin didn’t die. He was one of my favorites. One of my deep regrets in life is not going to see him one last time. He asked me to. He wanted to see me one last time before he died, but I told him I would probably be busy. Who does that? Who says they are busy to a dying mans’ wish?
I said it out of fear. I hated seeing him that way. You could barely hear his strained words over the constant rumbling in his chest. He couldn’t’ even use the bathroom without assistance and his while room in the hospital smelled like pee and antiseptic and death. It smelled like death, and there was my friend Kevin in the midst of it all.
I had only known Kevin for 4 months, but it still hit me hard to see him on his death bed. I met him when I was volunteering at the nursing home in Sydney. I walked in to make my visits, and there was Kevin on his breathing machine, his lighter and cigarettes waiting impatiently to be used in his other hand. The walls were gray from smoke while drawing and art supplies were scattered around the room. He got off his breathing machine, lit a cigarette, and we began to talk.
Kevin, who described himself as a Rasputin look-alike, was from New Zealand. He had chronic emphysema and lung cancer from a lifetime of smoking and decided to come to the nursing home because he was scared to die alone.
He was rarely alone throughout his life , after a stint of traveling around New Zealand, he bought a ramshackle house in Sydney and opened it to others. It was always the type of people who were “down on their luck but with good hearts.” He would tell me, “Some people just need a second chance, Kate.”
Kevin was also an artist. Pens and ink were his weapon of choice, but his work could be seen in various children’s books and pub walls in the greater Sydney-area.
“Kate, it’s a damn shame they are banning smoking in pubs. A damn shame. Pubs are about community; where you can come in, have a few drinks, and not be judged. Being forced outside to smoke ruins that a bit.”
Kevin, whos work was brilliant but little-known, was never one for attention and publicity. However, in all his life, he had never had a gallery show of his artwork. He had never been celebrated for his creativity and love of community. In the next month or so of meeting him, some friends of his put together an art show in his honor. At 62 years old, everyone knew Kevin was very sick and that this would probably be his first and last exhibit.
So, one rainy day, I took the bus across Sydney to Rose Street where the old wood doors of the Duck and Swan Hotel (where Kevin frequented) stood wide open. He was surrounded by friends, both old and new, and was obviously weak, but his eyes shown with such happiness I could see them as soon as I walked in.
“Kate! Kate!” he garbled/yelled as I approached him.
He linked his arm through mine and began introducing me to his friends, even the newspaper reporter that was standing there.
Who was I? I was the young, American girl who would make weekly visits to Kevin at the nursing home to talk about politics, religion, rugby, art, travel, and pub culture with him. Who was I? No one of consequence yet treated like an old friend and special guest at his art gallery opening.
That is certainly one thing I learned from Kevin. Everyone is of consequence and important. Everyone deserves a second glance and second chance.
I went to see him 5 days before I left the country. He was in the hospital, probably for the last time. It pained me to see him this way.
“Kate,” he spoke between the wheezing and coughing, “laying here in this hospital bed really makes me think about what will happen after I die. It’s an unavoidable thought, really.”
This was a well-visited topic of conversation between us. He went into another coughing fit. He pressed the button for the nurse and she came in, did something to his IV, and left.
“There is no way of knowing, Kate. I envy your faith and how you are so sure of things.”
“But Kevin,” I said, “you can be certain too. We’ve talked about it.”
“No. I haven’t been sure all my life and it won’t happen now. I suppose I’ll just find out when I get there.”
And those were some of the last words he said to me.
I gave him a goodbye hug, carefully, as he had become so fragile since we had first met.
The breathing machine hissed, we said a few, awkward words of goodbye. Words that wanted to say so much more, but had the power to do very little.
It was difficult.
I left the hospital weeping.
I left my friend Kevin in there alone, in the antiseptic/urine smell. In the smell of death.
Who does that? Who am I to do that?
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| “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven…a time to plant and a time to uproot”
~ Ecclesiastes 3:1,2
Here I go, uprooting again. I graduated from college yesterday. It’s as if a culmination of 4.5 years came down to Monday, December 15th, 2008 at the 2pm Commencement Ceremony.
“Do you have any regrets?” Yes, a few, but nothing I haven’t learned from.
“Was it all worth it?” A very heartfelt “Yes, it was” in response to that question.
It seems as if my life is all about planting and uprooting. I have come to terms with the fact that I don’t have any choice in the matter. I have tried to guard my heart and slide under the radar of each new place I find myself. The less people I get to know, the less people I have to say bye to when I leave, right? It was about three years ago that God told me, “Why are you holding yourself back? It’s not your heart to protect.”
So, since then, I throw my heart into everything and everyone I encounter. Even at the age of 22, I can already tell that my heart is well-worn and a bit battered, but it is cared for and spoken for by Someone who could do a much better job with it than I ever could. And I’m OK with that.
Gardner-Webb is no exception. I came here 2 years ago knowing no one and expecting to just make it through my 3rd college with only a few friends. Ha.
Two years later, I find myself graduating college with many wonderful, close, and, I daresay, lifelong friends. I embraced this small town life for all it was worth and I am all the better for it.
So, yesterday I graduated and today I am dusting off my travelers shoes and embarking again on my next big adventure. I find it strange that I can live in such ignorance of the future; knowing that I have practically nothing (except maybe a college degree and a camera), yet I still have everything yet to come for me. So, I will continue to give in to my wanderlust and will continue to plant and uproot. If home is where the heart is, then mine is scattered everywhere.
As to what these next few weeks/months/years hold for me, some plans are set in stone and some are still wet cement. Ok. All of these are wet cement. I can’t say for certain what I am doing past August 2009, so don’t hold me to these or anything. Here is my rough draft life for the next year and a half:
1.) Graduate college. (check)
2.) Move home to Georgia, live with the parents, get a job, and save up money.
3.) May-August 2009: move to Aliquippa, Pennsylvania and work with an inner city organization by teaching kids photography
4.) August 2009 -ish – August 2010-ish : move to France and teach English for a year or just travel Europe and Asia, living with friends, working on my photography and writing, and seeing what’s going on with the rest of the world first hand.
So, there they are. My “plans.” No, I don’t have a boyfriend I plan on marrying. No, I don’t have any intention of settling down anywhere soon. No, I don’t have any idea what I’m doing. That’s all I have so far, so please don’t ask about anything more me unless you have a bit of wisdom and insight to provide yourself.
I love my life and I wouldn’t have it any other way. And you. Yes, you… the one reading this… I’m glad you’re part of my life too. I suppose that’s all for now. I’m currently sitting in my half-empty house in North Carolina and I need to finishing packing so I can start living in my next destination. Peace.
~ Kate
“The journey is the destination.”
- Dan Eldon
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| written on 8/28/08 in a handmade journal from India with a fish head on it with a smudgy black ink gel pen:
I feel as if, because it's my last semester in college, that I am holding on to my memories too early and too much. It's as if I am living in a state of premature sentiment.
It's like the excitement of college and the thrill of the unknown future have faded in me. Perhaps faded isn't the word. It's more like... seasoned and aged. It's different. I feel it.
It is as if I can remove myself from where I am in life and be able to say, "your seasons are changing. You are in a transition process. Your chapter is ending and a new one is about to begin. It is the same sort of waterfall feeling I got right before I graduated from highschool.
I am in a small boat about to go over a waterfall. However, the waterfall represents change and going over it isn't necessarily a bad thing. It is big, and unknown, and scary, and it will swallow me up... but it isn't necessarily a bad thing.
I'm not sure when I came to the realization that this life of mine is bigger than me. People traipse through life searching for their purpose until they die. I feel as if often times they spend all of their time searching that they forget to actually live.
That's the thing with me, Kate Gazaway. I fully recognize that my life is brief and seemingly insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe, but the fact that I am HERE in this time living life the best I know how is all I am supposed to do. I am not searching for my purpose because I find it every day.
I have had people tell me that they want to have my life, but I wonder why. It isn't as if my life is extra-ordinary to anyone else's, but perhaps my approach and perspective are different.
There was a point in my life that was steeped in the frantic search for meaning and purpose, and this was all under the guise of Christianity and spirituality. Not to say I wasn't a Christian at this time, but instead of the peaceful anticipation of an unknown but fulfilling future like I have now, at that time in my life I was a flurry of uncertainty.
"Pray now that God will bring your future spouse to you. Pray now that God will reveal your future job, school, occupation, destination, etc to you. Figure out what you want to do with your life. Figure out how you can best serve God in the future. Future future future."
And thus was my problem. I was so future minded that I didn't fully absorb and appreciate the time of life I was in. It's the age-old story of wanting to be a grown up as a child, an established adult as a teenager, a seasoned career professional as a college student, married when single, a child when old, and then death. '
No way. Not for me. I am happy...right here at this time in my life. I may be going over this waterfall of unknown changes soon, but right now I am sitting in a creaky old rocking chair in the boat, enjoying the view before I go over.
I don't want to ever look back on my life and say, "Oh. What was I don't then? I was very busying with some thing or another. I don't remember. "
I ALWAYS want to remember and I ALWAYS want to make the day, the week, the month, the year count. God always told his people to remember remember remember what happened to them (both good and bad) and what He did for them.
I always want to remember. That is why my life is so amazing. That is why I can smile without faking it, from my heart. That is why life ravishes my senses and thrills me through and through. That is why I can love and that is why I am in love. Why I can be satisfied in any circumstances and why I have peace.
If God sees fit to use me then I am the happiest pawn of them all.
I am Kate Gazaway. I am 22.5 years old. I am single. I am a photographer. I am a friend. I am passionate. And I am damn happy to be here.
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| At first I thought it was a muscle spasm, but then I realized it was directed at me. It was a faint but unmistakable wave of the hand as I passed by. This wasn’t just any ol’ Miss America wave or even the small town country wave you would expect from this part of North Carolina. Oh no. It was much more than that. It was a wave, I quickly came to find out, known as “The Trucker Wave.”
Because I had to move back up to North Carolina from my home in Georgia, I used my Dad’s huge Chevy something-or-other pickup truck to tote my collegiate necessities around. It is a huge truck, with room enough in the cab to fit 8 people and a huge engine that rumbles like Southern thunder. Not to mention the huge gas tank which consumes unethical amounts of gasoline merely by starting the beast up. I have this Chevy Monster for a week until I can get my sleek, Kate-style Pontiac Vibe back.
The house I am living in while in North Carolina is a nice house out in the country. Giving people directions to my house is easy, “Drive until you reach the airport in the cow pasture, take a right at the Flying Pig barbecue, and it’ll be a few miles through the fields after that.”
It’s funny to me to think that a mere 2 weeks ago I was living my life in the city of Los Angeles. Now, I find myself back here in Boiling Springs, North Carolina. Both cities I can appreciate for their diversity and unique personalities, but they are by no means the same. I daresay I am experiencing a sort of culture shock being back here in the South.
This brings me to the Trucker Wave. While my truck would be reproached for it’s menacing size and glared at with disdain by environmentalists in Los Angles, here in Boiling Springs, I have observed, it is looked at with a sort of respect and admiration. Perhaps it is the National Rifle Association sticker or the Cherokee Rose Sporting Resort license plate on it, but it’s probably just the fact it’s a big-a** Chevy truck.
As a sign of this respect I (well, not me… the truck) have received an increasing amount of Trucker Waves as I drive through the town. It is inevitable. Old men trimming their lawns in the morning, construction workers, blue-collar men walking down Main Street, other men in ungodly sized trucks passing me on the road… all have flashed me the Trucker Wave. This is a secret club phenomenon that has never happened to me before. It’s almost better that being in drama club.
I called my dad to tell him about this strange, new experience I was having because of his truck.
“Dad! People throw down the Trucker Wave when I pass them on the street! It’s incredible!”
“Oh... the Trucker Wave,” he said, his voice grave, “I was going to wait until you were older to tell you about the Trucker Wave.”
These past few years of my life have been full of changes and the wonderful process of me discovering how to live my life to the fullest. I feel that I have done more in my short 22 years than many people have done in a lifetime. I have traveled, met all sorts of interesting and influential people, and experienced things that most humans only dream about. However, all of these things pale in comparison to the unity and camaraderie I have found within the warm embrace of the Trucker Wave.
Throw it down. Chevy country style.
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