Vanessa, a history.

Write a narrative about your life. This should include information about your accomplishments, family, educational experience, and outside activities. Be creative rather than philosophic. Remember that you are writing for a reader who knows nothing about you or your background. (1,000 words maximum)

Let’s build a time machine. We’re going to go back twenty-three years, to a muggy Memorial Day weekend in 1987. I wasted no time being born; I was out like a shot, ready to explore the world, and I have been growing, impatiently, ever since.

My parents divorced when I was very young. I grew up living with my mother, who steadfastly supported my every step and instilled in me a love of learning and a passion for creativity. As a kid, I sang, I danced, I drew and painted. I wrote plays, short stories and comic strips. I completed my homework diligently and requested extra credit assignments with the kind of enthusiasm that one could only expect from a little girl with stringy hair and enormous coke-bottle glasses. Yes, I was a nerd. I can’t remember whether I knew it at the time, but if I did, I showed no signs of caring. While my best friend decided to ration her time between playing with me and wooing the popular kids, I spent my recess hours creating the perfect scrapbook page on which to display my winning ribbon from the 5th grade science fair.

I have always been a good student, but eventually my love of school gave way to a love of theatre. For eight years, I spent my summers rehearsing for musical theatre productions. Once I reached high school, I spent the academic year in much the same fashion. I played ensemble parts, supporting characters and leading roles. I embodied the dark, moody spirit of the true Grimm fairytales as Little Red in Into the Woods. I portrayed an impassioned young woman with fiercely loyal gang aspirations as Anybodys in West Side Story and a poor Jewish bride fighting archaic traditions and the rising tide of prejudice as Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof. I understudied the gregarious Reno Sweeny in Anything Goes and, in an unexpected turn of events, deftly took to the stage on the night of our very last rehearsal. I managed to perfect the precarious act of balancing my theatrical endeavors with my studies and graduated fifth in my class with a degree from the prestigious International Baccalaureate program in hand.

A few short months later, I was off to the big city. After years of excelling in my English classes and harboring a deep-set love of writing, I had decided that a career in broadcast journalism would be perfect for me. I excitedly began my studies at Emerson College, and was promptly dismayed to discover that I had seriously underestimated my love of the sciences. No more amino acids or cellular pathways or vascular systems? No more valence electrons or resonance structures or hydrogen bonds? No more magnetic fields or gravitational interactions or protons? I could have cried.

Instead, I transferred to Wheaton College and took up a major in Physics and Astronomy and a minor in Biology. I thought that would fix matters. And it did, for a time. I found my creative niche in The Blend, Wheaton’s only co-ed a capella group. I joined the Physics Club and played an active part in fundraising and event planning. I delved deeper into the physical sciences than I ever thought possible. I spent a semester studying biology in Australia and returned older, wiser and more sunburnt. During my senior year, I made the trek to Rhode Island twice a week to attend an EMT certification class in an effort to get a better sense of how science is practically applied. I graduated Magna Cum Laude, with a job offer from an ambulance company in my hometown. I was ecstatic. I had everything figured out.

Of course, life is never quite that easy. There was something amiss in my plan and, deep down, I knew it. While working as an EMT, I spent my downtime reading articles about health and astrophysics in newspapers, blogs, magazines, and anything else I could get my hands on. I missed the classroom desperately, but after spending a college summer in academia, I knew that research wasn’t for me. There was simply too much interesting science to learn about. On a whim, I decided to move halfway across the country to Colorado to gain some perspective.

A few weeks after my big move, I had an epiphany. I had just returned from a long hike. I hadn’t quite adjusted to the high altitude, and the blazing summer sun and ever-present haze of black flies had made my climb all the more challenging. Exhausted, I sat down at my computer and began surfing my usual haunts. As I scrolled along, silently cursing the scientific illiteracy of so many journalists, it suddenly occurred to me that I could do a much better job. I could easily explain the mechanics of a black hole or the physiology of the human heart to the general public. In fact, I had been doing it for years. At Emerson, I had detailed the physics of time travel to a classroom full of actors and poets. At Wheaton, I had elaborated on the emergency treatment of eviscerated tissues to a table full of music students and social scientists. I get laypeople excited about science; that’s my thing.

These days I run Cosmodynamics, a science blog that has received hits from every corner of the globe. By day, I pay the bills. By night, I read and learn, edit and educate. It’s a great life. Even now, lightyears away from the geeky little girl I once was, I still wouldn’t have it any other way. In the end, some things just don’t change.

***

TL;DR version: Dear Boston University, Please accept me. Love, Vanessa

But I've begun to trust the view here.

I've had a great couple of weeks. A little over a week ago, Liz and I went to see the Weepies in concert. It was quite possibly the best concert I've ever been to. Arguably even better than Gaga, but then again, that would be like comparing apples with oranges. Outrageous sparkly oranges with claws. A few days later I had a day off from work and decided to take a drive, just me and the D50. I didn't end up taking all that many pictures. Instead, I drove around the mountains for about six hours, just taking it all in. I ended up in Nederland at a cozy back-country bar, hanging out with Liz and Paul and considering the merits of my life here. Two days later, I was potentially offered a promotion at work. There is a very good chance that if I want it, the job is mine.

Add that to the mix, and it's obvious that I've been having a lot of feelings lately. For those of you who know me well, you know that I hate feelings. I've always been resistant to change, and I think that is half the battle in the decision I'm trying to make here. Staying here much longer is going to change me - in fact, it already has - and that's scary. But when I compare my life now to the way it could have been had I stayed in Rhode Island, or the way it could be if I moved back to Boston, I realize that this may be exactly what I want, but never believed or expected. Being so far away from 90% of the people I know is very hard. Being in a place where I can't seem to do what I ultimately want to do in terms of a career is hard. Letting go of my past and my concrete expectations for my future is hard. It's always hard, and it always will be hard, wherever I am. I'm going to see how I feel when I'm in New Haven this weekend, but right now I'm feeling like I might want to stay after all, at least until May. I have a place to live here, and a pretty good job where I'm making enough money to survive and a potential promotion in the near future, all of which is more than I could say for a life I might create back east. Yes, I may end up leaving in a few months, but I don't necessarily have to worry about that now. I can quit making things so hard for myself. Yes, I'm tired of getting up and moving all the time, but I'm even more tired of not allowing myself to be happy.

In fact, I'm going to try something novel. I'm going to try to stop planning my life out, resisting every change that comes my way. I'm at a point in my life where it's becoming less necessary anyway. I'm going to let myself be "here" right now, wherever "here" might be, rather than worrying about being somewhere else. I might change my mind this weekend, or next week, or next month or next year, but right now all I have to do is ride my bike home, enjoy the sun on my back and the crisp mountain air on my face, take a deep breath, and relax. It's so simple, and I'm very silly not to recognize that.

They've got the urge for going, and they've got the wings so they can go.

I've been awake since about 3:30 listening to the wind howling outside. I've never heard anything like it. I guess winter is just about here. And its arrival has me thinking about where I need to be.



When I decided to move here a year and a half ago, it was because I thought I might want to be a physician assistant. I figured I would establish residency here, take some classes, and eventually apply to grad school down at CU's medical campus in Denver. That plan persisted until the beginning of this year, when I realized that it might not be the path I want to pursue after all. I was no longer sure that moving halfway across the country was such a good idea. I did it anyway. Fast forward a few months, and my goals have changed completely. Does that necessarily change things? No. But let me rephrase - knowing me, does that change things? Yes. Possibly.

I'll cut to the chase. If I'm going to be successful in science journalism, I'm going to need to be on the east coast for much of the foreseeable future. Until I establish myself in the field, I'm going to be tied to one of a handful of locales that actually offer jobs. That means Boston. That means leaving here. If not sooner, then later. Should that matter? No, not really. But at this point, I've been "leaving" every few months for the last five years. I'm tired of it and I'm ready to settle somewhere.

Here's the problem: I love it here. I'm getting comfortable. Colorado is really beginning to feel more like home. If moving back east is really in my future... well, I know myself and that is a recipe for disaster. I'm better off getting out now, while it won't hurt so much. I can't do what I did in Rhode Island again. I can't uproot myself once I've settled in. So as I see it, I have three options:

1. Suck it up. Enjoy the time I have left here, and leave knowing that I made the most of it. It's probably the most sensible option, but it wouldn't happen without a huge amount of heartache down the road and I just don't think I want to put myself through that again.

2. Move back east after Christmas. Live and work in Boston, try to find some sort of writing internship and hope for the best when I hear back from MIT and BU in April. Allow myself to settle down for once without any plan to get up and leave.

3. Let myself get comfortable here with no plan to leave. That probably means letting go of the science writing thing and reverting back to my original goal. Deal with the consolation prize of living in a beautiful, amazing place, oust my inner New Englander and let Colorado take over.

I'm going to be at Yale for the National Association of Science Writers' conference from November 5-8. I'm hoping that I'll come back from that weekend with some clarity. Until then, I'm working on not being so clueless.

on melody and memory.

This morning, Pandora decided to play me a song that I hadn't heard in quite a while, a song that was part of a CD that I happened to purchase during a whiny and particularly crap period of my life. At the time I felt like hell, and while I wouldn't consider this album to be "emo" by any standards, I found it inspiring. I mean, whatever. We all have our moments, right?

The odd thing about this experience, though, was that the song made me smile. Not because I'm a different person now, or because I'm happier today than I was back then, or because it was one of my favorite songs at the time, regardless of ambient circumstance. No, this particular song made me smile precisely because it put me right back in that place. It was a romantic walk back through a bitterness that I can only now fully appreciate. Don't get me wrong - my smile had absolutely nothing to do with what I learned from my mistakes, or the clarity with which I can now reflect on the situation. It was simple, sweet nostalgia for my own overwhelming (and probably overblown) angst.

This has happened to me more times than I can count; a piece of music rolls through me, leaving swells of adversity in its wake, inevitably culminating in a kind of tragic happiness. And it got me thinking about the power of memory. I can only assume that my own troublesome feelings about the past lose their potency as a kind of self-preservation. So that the narrative remains fact, but the feelings become more like fiction, vague flashes of moments that I can rewrite and fill in on a whim.

Does this happen to anyone else? Maybe not. Is any of this rational? Maybe not. Maybe I'm a control freak who desperately needs to be in charge of her own history. Or maybe I'm just obsessed with the fullness of feeling. Either way, it's a response I wouldn't give up for the world.

Three months.

What a fantastic couple of weeks. To start with, Sheida arrived two weeks ago. Some highlights from the five days that followed: spending hours upon hours perusing books downtown, running at the reservoir, belly dancing, racing tricycles around one of Boulder's best dive bars, hiking in the mountains around Mitchell Lake up in Ward, building an evening campfire in Nederland, staring up at millions of stars and having deep conversations about our futures, seeing Hubble at the IMAX in Denver, surprise salsa dancing, filming yet another original movie (which can be viewed here, for the curious), tooling around Pearl Street, and of course, eating lots and lots of delicious food.

After she left, I had about a day and a half to breathe. Then my dad arrived. Drove up to Ward again, this time to hike the Isabelle Glacier trail around Long Lake. Incredible. He was nice enough to have my ailing car repaired, so we spent one day exploring Pearl Street and the rest of downtown on foot, poking in and out of shops, bookstores, the beautiful library, and of course, restaurants. We visited the Museum of Science in Denver, saw Hubble (yes, again) and a planetarium show, and drove up to Nederland to watch the spectacularly clear Perseid meteor shower. Another day, we went hiking at Chatauqua Park and stumbled upon one of the most incredible natural phenomena I've ever seen: the Royal Arch. It's an enormous stone archway that frames an amazing panorama of Boulder, the Flatirons, and the rest of the Front Range. The trail made for a fairly taxing hike, but in the end, it was so worth it. Spending so much time with my dad was certainly something new, but it was really great to reconnect. I know he wasn't thrilled about returning to Rhode Island. Both he and Sheida seemed to really love it here. But... let's be honest, it's hard not to.


(here's why.)

Now I have a couple of weeks to regroup and relax before my next series of visitors arrive. I really love having people come out here, but it will be nice to have some time to process everything that has been going on. Apparently life doesn't stop while you're busy entertaining other people... who knew? I'm currently in the midst of starting my applications for grad school. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm incredibly excited, but I'm also a bit overwhelmed too. Not that it's a bad "overwhelmed". In fact, it's the same kind of "overwhelmed" I felt last spring when everything suddenly aligned to push me out here. I'm not terribly high on the idea of having to move back east, but I finally feel like I'm on the right path. Honestly, that's worth all the flat topography in the world. What's funny is that professional contacts have kind of just been falling into my lap lately. It will never stop amusing me, how things just seem to work out sometimes.

two months.

Today, Liz and I went for an easy four-mile run around the Boulder reservoir. It was so, so beautiful.


Exhibit A. Image courtesy of RunColo.

It's times like these (which are becoming more and more frequent, by the way) that remind me how happy and fortunate I am to be here. The other day, Liz mentioned how amazing it was to be so untethered, and I suddenly remembered that I almost changed my plans and stayed in RI. It sort of shocked me to remember how I felt six months ago. How okay I was with ignoring my hunger for adventure. How okay I was with forgetting my desire to push my limits and feel the discomfort that comes with real growth. I remembered how depleted I felt when finally did leave. I had given so much of myself to people back home, some who didn't deserve my energy and some who did; but either way, I hadn't left anywhere near enough to fill my own cup.

And that's the real beauty of being here. As incredible as it is that I live at the foot of the mountains, as amazing as it is to have such a breathtaking view every time I leave my house, as wonderful as it is to wake up to sunshine and blue sky nearly every day, the real beauty is in granting myself permission to just be. To write when I want to, to read when I want to, to be active when my body craves it and to look inward when my mind does. It's sort of like I'm dating myself, learning all the things I love and taking note of all the things I don't. I've tried to stop comparing myself to other people and start comparing myself to the woman I hope to someday become.

I've also realized something important about my attitude toward men. At this point, I'm not really interested in casually dating. In fact, I never have been. I tricked myself into thinking I was for a while; in fact, I tricked myself into believing a whole myriad of desires. But quite frankly, I'm deathly tired of bullshit. If it isn't going to be real, I want no part of it. That being said, as much as I want to be ready for the big guns, I'm not there yet either. All of this puts me in a sticky spot when it comes to dealing with the men I've met in the last couple of months. While some of them have been quite nice and clearly interested in me, I haven't really seen the potential for any kind of future. Besides, I don't know where I'm going to be in a year. Funnily enough, I said all of this last summer too. But did I listen? No. I played with fire, and I learned my lesson.

So, in short, I'm enjoying this opportunity to be blatantly selfish and focus on me for a while. I'm quite relishing it. I breathe easier when I'm single and until that changes, I'm (happily) on my own.

on being a big fat baby.

Yesterday I got on a bicycle for the first time in a decade. Ten years ago, I thought bike-riding was fun. Then as a teenager, my busy schedule gave way to disinterest, and then to inexperience, and finally after so many years, to fear. Of course, you can hardly blame me for being slightly petrified of vehicles that are supposed to balance on two wheels. After coming inches from careening off a cliff three years ago on a motor scooter in Australia, I was in no hurry to test fate again. But this was a free bike, and this is Boulder. So after weeks of putting it off, I finally went ahead and set out to face my fear. I wheeled my bike down the stairs and out into the yard. I took a deep breath and looked around. And let me tell you, I could swear that every passing car contained a driver gaping in his rear-view mirror at the scared-looking grown woman who clearly had never gotten past training wheels. Whole families were crowded around their apartment windows, pointing and laughing at my ineptitude. Even the dog in my parking lot was tossing me knowing glances. Then I threw my leg over the seat, sat down... and started to pedal. Even after all that time, the old axiom rang true - it is, truly, just like riding a bike. I managed to stay upright surprisingly well despite my vivid premonitions of slamming into trees and parked cars. It was exhilarating. After riding in circles for a little while, I led my bike back into the apartment, gave myself a pat on the back... and ate milk and cookies while watching cartoons and coloring in my coloring book. Just kidding. It was soy milk.

Life hasn't been too exciting as of late. Work is going very well, though. I got assigned to work the bar last Monday night, which was encouraging because bar shifts are generally the most coveted and only the most seasoned staff tend to get them. I'm feeling more comfortable around everyone and I'm doing very well in tips. And aside from my ever-present personal obsession with planning, I feel no pressure whatsoever to have any idea what I'm doing with my life. It's funny, every now and again I'll hear a siren and think to myself, "I'm so glad I'm a waitress." I've also been toying with some new career options lately, which isn't something I've done in a long time. I feel far more free and far more young than I have anytime in recent memory. That is a very positive thing.

Just for kicks, I'll be starting a science blog sometime soon. I'll keep you updated.

and the world spins madly on.

The last couple of days have been... eventful, I suppose. I've been feeling a little "off" for a while now, so I decided that I would take some time to myself this weekend. On Friday night, I asked Liz to suggest a trail or two that I had never hiked before. She mentioned Bear Peak and said it was comparable to Chautauqua, which is where Meg and I hiked back in September. Not too long, not terribly strenuous - it sounded like a lovely way to spend a sunny Saturday by myself. So the next morning, I headed out toward Eldorado Springs, ready for a nice little jaunt and some pretty scenery. Next thing I know, it's four hours later, I'm clambering up an all but vertical slew of rocks with an empty water bottle and approximately 1,000 new fly friends all clearly in love with and plastered all over my dirty, sticky body, and the summit is nowhere in sight. Don't get me wrong, the view from the top was more than worth the blood, sweat and tears (pretty much literally). I'm just glad I had no clue what I was getting myself into. Fast forward a few more hours and I'm sitting on my couch, refusing to move for fear of what my legs might do to me, stuffing my face with Indian food and watching the Netflix that had been sitting on my kitchen counter since before I moved in. Now, it was a bit unfortunate to spend my Saturday night in that fashion. I had run into one of my coworkers on the trail (which was just about the most random encounter I could have possibly had) and we had planned to go up to the mine where one of my managers lives that night, but I simply wasn't moving. And besides, me-time.

Today I had planned to spend some time out by the pool, but it was just too damn hot. Instead, I wrote a few letters to people, skyped with my mom, and got a massage. I can't say the hot stones felt terrific on my sunburned back, but it was mostly wonderful. After making myself a nice dinner, I dropped in on the Kirtan that was going on down the road. Kirtan is something I experienced on a retreat I went on back in January, and I loved it. To me, it's what church should have felt like but never did. Maybe its the 5000-year old Sanskrit, or the collective awareness of everyone in the room, or maybe some combination of the two, but the energy is seriously palpable. It's the tingly, swarming kind of feeling I get from the best of meditations. It's lovely. Two and a half hours passed in a flash, and here I am.

So about that me-time, do I feel any different? Not really. What I'm feeling here is terribly familiar. I've felt it before, and quite frankly that turned out miserably. I have no intention of letting this experience go the same way, but to be honest, it's scaring me a little bit. People keep asking me why I moved here, and my answer is usually something along the lines of "just because" or "why the hell not?". Not that there's anything wrong with either of those reasons. In fact, a lot fellow transplants I've talked to had the same rationale. But I think what I'm up against here is that I changed. I was of one mind when I decided to move, and I was of a different mind when I actually got up the balls to do it. I kept trying to deny it to myself, but the year I spent back in Rhode Island changed me. And now I'm here, expecting to be one person but instead being someone completely different. It isn't about regret; for one reason or another, I'm supposed to be here. I just have to figure out who I want to be.

The Beginning, Part II

So here I am in Colorado. I arrived 12 days ago, and it has been a bit of a whirlwind. The trip out here was a lot of fun. My friend Chelsea came out with me and we made just enough stops to make the long days of driving bearable. Roanoke, Nashville, Memphis, Kansas City, and finally Boulder on day 5. I spent most of my first week here getting organized: moving all my stuff in and figuring out where to put it all, buying furniture and house supplies, registering my car, getting to know the area, etc etc. I started looking for a job last Tuesday, and by Wednesday I had been hired full-time at one of my favorite pubs in Boulder. I just happened to stumble in the day before a big group interview, and the managers I interviewed with the next morning liked me enough to hire me on the spot. Since then, work has pretty much been my life. Tonight was day 5 of training. I have two more training shifts and then I'm on my own. It's all a bit overwhelming, but I think I'm handling it well. Everyone has been telling me what a great job I'm doing and how I'm one of the best trainees anyone has ever worked with. I'm not sure I have as much confidence in myself as everyone else seems to, but I'm certainly feeling worlds better about my performance than I was on day 1. I guess that's all I can really ask for. That and free beer, which I'm getting. Ah, the perks of working for a brewery.

I guess I'll talk a bit about the restaurant itself since that has been my world for the last few days. There are three pubs all operated by the same brewery: Southern Sun in South Boulder (which is where I work), Mountain Sun in downtown Boulder, and the Vine Street pub in downtown Denver. At any given time, we have about 16-18 of our own beers on tap and 2 or 3 visiting brews from elsewhere in Colorado. Basically, we serve burgers and beer, but people will come in on the weekends and wait an hour and a half for a table just for the atmosphere. We all work as a team, so even though we all have our own "sections" of the pub to serve, we pretty much take care of everyone. What that means is that everyone is in on the tip jar. Servers, kitchen staff, everyone. That might sound like a crappy deal, but it really isn't. For instance, last night the closers each made $135 in tips. You work damn long hours (I'm already nearing 35 this week and I still have two nights to go) and you work your ass off in manual labor opening and closing the restaurant, but I love it. The energy is infectious. We all dance around to blaring music and scream and yell for peoples' birthdays and down beers in front of customers at the end of our shifts and generally roughhouse with each other and our patrons, and get paid for it.

It's a ton of fun. I'm just hoping I'll be part of the furniture within a few months' time. You'd probably never know it, but breaking into a new group of people has always been one of the hardest things for me. Externally, I'm doing a great job of being outgoing and sociable, but I'm always fighting the urge to hole up and shut out the world. I gave into that feeling in Australia, and to a certain extent when I moved back to Rhode Island after college, but I'm fighting it pretty hard this time. I know this move was the right thing to do, and now it's just a matter of getting past myself and learning to sink my teeth in.

I think I just need some time. Hell, I haven't even been here for two weeks yet. Driving home from work tonight, it struck me as odd that I actually live here now. Heading north, seeing the streets pass by: Arapahoe, Canyon, Walnut, Pearl. Streets that I've traveled often enough in my past visits that are now, in a sense, my own. I still feel like I'm living in someone else's house. Or in someone else's life. This is totally a cliche, but I literally looked in the mirror while I was on my break at work today and didn't recognize myself. It wasn't so much that I looked different. It was more like I was meeting myself for the first time. And of course all these feelings are normal, but this is a whole lot of change all at once. Luckily I have friends at home who are making the transition a bit easier. I'm also fortunate enough to be living with one of my best friends. I'm having a great time here and everything is going right. I feel more free than I ever have before. I'm just waiting to feel like all of this is mine.

The Beginning

My life is about to change in a big way. Let’s recap. I’ve basically spent the last 23 years living in one spot. I grew up in Rhode Island and spent four years at school in Massachusetts. I had the good fortune to spend a couple of months in Virginia and a couple more in Australia, but those were both short-lived ventures and they were always designed to be temporary. After college, I came back to Rhode Island, where I have been living for the last year. Now I have decided to pick up and move myself 2000 miles across the country to Colorado, possibly for good.

Now, I’ve bounced around enough in the last couple of years that it wouldn’t seem like this would be a terribly big deal to me. But this is not school. This is the big, bad real world. I’m leaving a very comfortable, broken-in home in favor of one where I know less people than you can count on one hand and where I have no immediate means of sustaining myself. Interesting choice I’ve made here. It almost makes me want to cancel all my grandiose plans and crawl into bed, where it’s cozy and familiar, and not come out, well, ever.

Almost.

What I realized in the course of making this decision is that I had two choices: I could stay comfortable, or I could challenge myself. And at this point in my life, I’m just not ready to settle yet. Don’t get me wrong, I wish I were. Most of me can’t wait for the day when I can wake up every morning to a stable, routine life. But that day isn’t today. It isn’t even close to today. There’s a big world out there, one that I want to know and one that should know me. Right now, I have the opportunity to experience new people, new places, the excitement of the unknown and the adventure of being free. Who am I to be scared?