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[alwhitehorne]

Closing The Book

Anxiety radiates off me...I wish, not for the first time, that my ESC boss lived closer to NY.

It is an impulse decision to turn right instead of left. Left would have taken me to Whole Foods, but right took me to Little Portion, now Hope Academy, I correct myself, but I don’t care. It will always be Little Portion to me. I had dropped my charge off at school, and decided that I would go to Whole Foods. Normally, I go straight from one job to the next, but I had received an early morning…

[alwhitehorne]

Taking Stock

Taking Stock "This [is] the [life] I have. And I am trying to make peace with that."

My doctor was afraid to ask if “that’s all” when I described the roller coaster the last four years have been. It’s enough to make me feel that my head and my heart might explode when I list it: I went to Kenya, I dated someone I expected I’d marry; we broke up. I finished grad school, I went to Hawai’i, came home with lupus and a very near miss on cancer. I spent 6 months in treatment; the…

[alwhitehorne]

The Return

I posted an essay on summer camp (with a bit of an announcement contained therein) over on tumblr this morning. Have a read if you wish!

[alwhitehorne]

The Return

Every spring for as long as I can remember, my mom has had a camp dream. She’ll come downstairs the next morning reminiscing about what it was like to work at sleep away camps. In my late teens and early 20s, knowing her experiences at camps and having spent every summer of my life between ages 4 and 16 attending some kind of camp it seemed natural for me to work at camp. I set off for my first summer working at Camp DeWolfe at 19. Camp DeWolfe is the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island’s church camp, on the north shore of Long Island. On clear days, you can see across the Sound to Connecticut from the Chapel. Every year since then, I, too, have had a camp dream.

Since I left Hawaii just before Christmas of 2013, I have had lots of dreams about Hawaii, separate from camp dreams. It didn’t surprise me. So much was open-ended and unresolved. Over time, the grief and pain has faded into longing. This, too, was not unexpected. I was surprised by how much I missed Hawaii, and Camp Mokule'ia. I missed my Hawaiian ohana. There was a lot of loss to process, and surrendering is not something at which I have ever been good. My plans for that year, and for my life, were irrevocably altered. My life will never be what I had anticipated it would be before I set off for my service corps year. There are days when that still hurts. I have learned to find freedom in what I would have previously considered failure. I have picked up, brushed off, licked my wounds, and figured out how to attempt to get on with things.

Summer of 2014 was a sad one. I was in treatment, and I knew that I would not be able to work at summer camps again. My sister went off to DeWolfe for her first year in their Leaders In Training Program, and packing up her camp clothes and supplies and not mine brought sadness and the grudging peace that sometimes accompanies a reluctant acceptance. I’ve never feared getting older, but the moment when I was officially and permanently past my camp phase was a sad one.

This year, my camp dream arrived early. I told Mom I’d already had my camp dream, and we laughed about how in most cases, you inherit your eye color and your sense of humor from your parents, and in ours, I’ve inherited annual camp dreams.

In just over a month, I will be flying back to Hawaii, and going back to Camp Mokule'ia for a weeklong writing conference. I have been richly blessed throughout these last few years, and my going to this conference was the result of quite a great deal of scheming by several dear friends. When it was first mentioned to me, I wrote it off, convinced that it would never happen. At least not now. I shouldn’t have been surprised when everything started to fall into place. I will be taking a class in nonfiction (memoir and personal essay), and I already have an idea of how I’ll be using that time writing-wise. I’m so excited that I’ll be back at Camp.

Aloha, A

[alwhitehorne]

Adventures with the Magnificat! (Sermon, Dec. 20, 2015)

Adventures with the Magnificat! (Sermon, Dec. 20, 2015)

On December 20th, I had the privilege of vesting up and preaching at the Church I work part time at. It was a lot of fun, and I was so pleased that my sermon about Mary made an impact on the parishioners. Reading the Magnificat so many times in the few days before, during, and after when I was preaching filled my soul with such joy and gladness! The Magnificat has always been one of my favorite…

[alwhitehorne]

Super Lazy Saturday; Belated Lazy Saturday Post

Super Lazy Saturday; Belated Lazy Saturday Post

My thinking for the blog for this academic year is that if holidays fall on normal posting days, those posts will be skipped. Except for snow days, if schools are closed, this blog will be, too. However, even though it’s Labor Day weekend, I’ve seen some great TV shows this summer and wanted to share some opinions with you! I’ve always been fascinated by the Tudor Dynasty, and have seen a lot of…

[alwhitehorne]

It's That Back To School Time Again!

It’s That Back To School Time Again!

So I suppose it’s time to rid the blog of cobwebs, and get back to my regularly established blogging schedule of new posts on Mondays and Saturdays. This summer has brought a lot of news, and a lot of things that I would have written about had I found words for them, such as the murder of Cecil. But, as it’s impossible to discuss all of what we’ve missed, here’s a bit of a round-up of things I’m…

[alwhitehorne]

My Dear Readers Thank you so much for coming along on this journey with me! Seeing this this morning made me so, so happy. I am so grateful for you.

[alwhitehorne]

Body Of Proof

In last week’s Lazy Saturday post, I wrote about procedurals that I loved, and somehow–likely due to the fact that I still haven’t forgiven the network for canceling it and so I block it out so as not to feel the hurt–I completely neglected to mention Body Of Proof. My grandfather and I independently started watching Body Of Proof, and when we saw them a few years back, he started raving about…

[alwhitehorne]

Protein Shakes and UGG Boots

I’ve had an incredibly sensitive stomach for about 10 years now, due to years and years of undiagnosed celiac, acid reflux, and then treatment. For years, I’ve tried to have a lot of smoothies when the weather gets super hot and humid, because that’s when I tend to be most nauseated. I’ve tried lots of different brands, and most recently, I’ve had to make sure that they’re all gluten free. I’ve…

[alwhitehorne]

Procedurals and Satires

Maybe it’s because I grew up watching British Mysteries, or maybe it’s because prior to being a writer, I was a hardcore science geek, or maybe it falls under the same category as diagnosing other people over the course of a conversation, but I love procedurals. Sometimes I even guess what’s going to happen. Actually, I am chronically terrible about figuring things out as they unravel instead of…

[alwhitehorne]

Music

I grew up in a house surrounded by music and by musicians. My mom is a classically trained flautist, my Godmother a Bel Canto soprano, her then-husband a pianist and organist, and my Godfather a violinist. My father loved music deeply, though he was not a musician. I grew up listening to church music–my favorite band was Chanticleer, and I saw them in concert–and then I went to school and to camp…

[alwhitehorne]

Wordpress Issues

Hi, friends! 

I have my Wordpress blog connected to this, and I’ve set all of my blog posts to share to this tumblr page, but I see that the last few updates haven’t published here, and the one that did took me quite a few edits to get shared properly. Please be patient while I try to work these kinks in the system out. In the meantime, I do hope that you’ll pop over to my Wordpress and read there!

[alwhitehorne]

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Towards the end of last summer, or maybe the beginning of fall, I began a complete Voyager re-watch. Voyager got me through a lot of tough times, and throughout the years, I have gone back and re-watched specific episodes and specific story arcs, as I have also done with The Next Generation, and the movies, and also Deep Space Nine to a lesser extent. I was into Season 2 or 3 of Voyager when I…

[alwhitehorne]

Welcome!

From now on, all posts on my WordPress blog will appear here, as well as on WordPress. I may also be posting some original content that does not get posted on WordPress here, and I will definitely be linking and reblogging things that might be of interest to you.

It was my intention to connect my Instagram to this blog, but as of right now, Instagram cannot post to secondary or side blogs on Tumblr (anjelicablogshawaii is the primary blog on this account, as it is the one that I first registered this email to tumblr with), but hopefully that will change soon! In the meantime, please feel free to check my Instagram, as I update that most frequently (usually with pictures of the adorable Zoey Makana).

Please bear with me as I get things set up to my liking!

[alwhitehorne]

My essay, published by Role Reboot last week.