THE INNER WORKINGS...

my red dot.

Half of my forehead is sunburned. It's an odd thing about Florida. The sun rises over the ocean, sets behind you, but always seems to stay to your right. I suppose that's because the sun hovers around the equator (or rather, the equator stays closest to the sun). But it doesn't make for a very even tan. Which is why half of my forehead is sunburned.

Even though I love to write, somedays I have too much to say to put down here and send off to cyberspace. One day I'll be that disciplined writer that I dream of being... cup of coffee in hand, rain pouring outside (because to write well, it most certainly needs to be raining outside... something to do with the barometric pressure increasing vocabulary), a stack of literary classics to one side, and scraps of papers and small napkins smothered in my spontaneously-captured deep thoughts to the other. But for now, it's jut me. Which means that I might stop by and write every once-in-a-while. No coffee. No rain. Certainly no discipline.

Anyway, back to my sunburn. I'm sunburned and in Florida because I'm attending a debrief with our organization. It's wonderful to be surrounded by thirty-odd other people who understand me when I say sometimes I feel like more of a foreigner here in the States than back in Argentina. They smile and nod, and drift off in happy thoughts of a good bratwurst and beer, or whatever delicacy they're missing at the moment.

Yesterday, we shared with a small group at our debriefing about our "red dot". You know the one: when at the mall, searching for the Bath and Body Works, and you look at the map forlornly realizing that store 323B is painfully far from the little, red dot marking "you are here". Well, the idea of sharing about our red dot was to let others know where we were... more emotionally and spiritually than physically, although with this crowd, we're so turned upside down that we might just need to be reminded which country we're in. (Just last night, walking on the beach with my roommate, I kept looking at the stars trying to find the Southern Cross, only to remember later that the Southern Cross is in the southern hemisphere. And I'm not.)

I could take a turn for the deep now, and spill the beans on where I am emotionally in this crazy journey of re-entry, but because it's after midnight, and because my half-burned forehead is making me kind of hot, and therefore a bit sleepy, I thought I'd just share my "red dot" in pictures.

Here we go.


And here's me in heaven. A wonderful pen (I've always been a fan of papermate), my journal (which is in my lap and not in the picture), and a balcony overlooking the ocean. I could camp out at this red dot for a long time.

posted by Courtney @ 1:32 AM