A spring greeting to y’all! It certainly is March here in Maine, with high pressure systems creating clear but gusty days as the hope of those long warm nights is starting to creep into all of our minds.

Time is ticking slowly on my spring break, where so far I have done nothing but work. It kind of bummed me out yesterday as I scrolled through my Facebook feed and saw all kinds of fun happening while I was stuck at my shift then and for the rest of the week. I did choose to do this (and so far it beats school and homework any day) but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t a little jealous of all you people out there having fun. So live it up for me friends.

Anyway, it’s really not that important-I just needed to vent a little bit. Venting over! Guess what?! In 4 days I will be going back to the Battle of Maine martial arts tournament to compete like I did last year! Let me tell you-this year I am out for revenge. I mean, not really. It’s not like I’m boiling hot angry at anyone, but I do expect a lot out of myself comparatively to last year for all three of the categories-weapons, open-hand forms, and fighting. Hopefully my friend will get an awesome picture of me looking really badass and I can post it to Facebook.

This has nothing to do with what I’m writing about, but look at this handsome fella!

ANYWAY, I believe those are all the life updates for now. Let us begin a movie review! Well…not really.

Some spoilers for Captain Marvel from this point on if you haven’t seen it yet!

By total coincidence, I ended up seeing Captain Marvel on International Women’s Day. This is funny because two years ago I ended up at the big Women’s March in Boston right after the presidential election by total accident! That is definitely a story for another day. But I went with my roommates and some of the martial arts club, which at the moment is me and 4 dudes. I ABSOLUTELY loved the film, but the boys said otherwise. They by no means hated it, but felt that Brie Larson fell flat and the movie wasn’t really that spectacular or relatable. And about halfway through the conversation in my car on the way home, I began to piece together what they were really trying to say.

A common desire humans share in regards to cinema is we want to see people who look like us. This can be in terms of race, gender, whatever really. It’s a very unconscious thing we look for. This is why Black Panther was such a big deal. For the first time in a lot of peoples lives, they were going to the movies and seeing actors who looked like them playing the LEADING roles. This is important, especially for Marvel, because this is the FIRST TIME a woman has played the leading role in the MCU, meaning she is who gets the most screen time, is who we focus on, and ultimately who we have to care about to root for.

I actually have this in fridge-magnet form!

My diagnosis for why my guy friends truly didn’t like Captain Marvel is that the genders actually have an unconscious inability to relate to each other on the deepest human level. So let me come in personally on that statement to try to clear it up. I am a huge fan of the Marvel movies-they’re actually the only movies I will go and pay to see in theaters. But I’ve never walked away from Captain America or Iron Man moved emotionally by their performances or relating to my very soul to what those guys were going through. With Captain Marvel however, I was close to tears at some points. Because what I saw looked like me. All throughout the movie, Jude Law’s character tells her she needs to control her emotions and forget who she is to be her most powerful self. It was basically the theme of the movie, her trying to figure her life out while literally every male character in some way tells her she needs to control herself to varying degrees. But when she finally realizes and embraces that it is her human-ness and emotions that give her strength, she literally starts glowing and radiating cool fire energy and kicks everybody’s ass and sends Jude Law home with his tail between his legs after finding out it was him who was the one who betrayed her and tried to strip her of her identity.

I’ve never seen a man have to control or even straight up deny what goes on inside his  brain or heart or even body for crying out loud! They are encouraged to live passionately and boldly and loudly. But I feel that there is so much pressure on women to suppress everything about them. And conversely, I actually have no idea what it is like in the head of the male species, and what that statement would say if it were coming from a dude. A man could totally walk out of Captain America: The First Avenger and really relate to what Steve Rogers had to go through in the Army. I will never know what it is like to walk through this world as a man to my core, down to my DNA, and vice versa. So how, if this is true, could I relate on a deep and personal level to a man on screen, and why would a man want to see a woman struggle through accepting the broken parts about her, if he’s never had to do that? It’s just really never gonna happen. However…

This is no excuse not to be understanding and celebratory of each other. God made both men and women for a reason, and the whole point was so that we would compliment, not divide from each other. The division is what I see so much of today. Men and women HATE each other! Just turn on the news-there is so much widespread violence against women all over the world, mass incarcerations of men, etc. But as long as we are understanding of the differences about us and not bitter about them (oops there’s a challenge for me), we can begin to reconcile millennium of war against each other.

Men: Please know that walking through the world as a woman is hard. We are emotional beings, God designed us that way. Our insides LITERALLY change on a monthly basis. So “getting a grip” is actually quite a hard and painful thing to do. Being a women means being so delicate and so fierce at the same time, all day, everyday.

Women: Please know that walking through the world as a man is hard. They are burdened with having it together all the time. There is SO much pressure on them to be perfect and eloquent and strong, I really don’t know how guys do it. Being a man means being a warrior, but sometimes there is no war to fight.

Let’s try to understand and love one another even though we are very different. Have a super (haha!) week.

~J

P.S. Go and see Captain Marvel if you haven’t yet. I would highly recommend it, even if you aren’t a huge Marvel fan. If superhero movies like this were around when I was a kid, I would probably be a much bigger superhero fan. I think the recommendation for kids is 10+ but it’s always up to you at your parenting discretion.

P.P.S. If you see it and STILL think Brie Larson falls flat as an actress, I dare you to go watch the movie Room, one of my favorites starring her, and tell me she’s not top quality.

What a weekend, friends.

As I write this now on Monday evening, I am SO thankful we had a snow day today here in Maine so I could catch up on my homework, do all my laundry, rinse 3 different airports from body, and write this post. I’m not even exaggerating guys-my body is HURTING as the exhaustion of travel is catching up to me now. Please continue to pray that I can get all caught up.

But enough of that! Let me tell you about the weekend! I’m sure you’re dying to know. Also, I wrote a poem that will be featured below about traveling through the south for a whole weekend-hope you like it! If you don’t have time to read this whole post, the poem will do a pretty good job of summing it up-it goes through every place I stopped on this wild trip! 😄

After a long day on Thursday, I made it to Liesel’s house in Portland. I stayed the night there and at 4:00 am we headed out for the Portland Airport. I made my connection in Philly (not barely, but it was closer than I normally like) because you cannot get a direct flight anywhere out of PWM. From Philly it was off to Atlanta, where Tatum saved the day (Tatum always saves the day, though) by picking me up and after we picked up Willy and made sure Katie, who was originally supposed to drive, was still alive (she was sick in bed), we fought our way through Atlanta traffic and were Baton Rouge bound. We had dinner at Cracker Barrel somewhere in Alabama, and 9 hours total at around midnight, we pulled into our airbnb and had a nice night of sleeping into Saturday morning.

Tatum brought the ever friendly Birdie for the trip! Yay dogs!

Willy and Birdie definitely got along…

We absolutely could not start the drive until we ate Chick-Fil-A.

After a fantastic brunch and a quick run to SuperTarget Saturday morning/afternoon, all the ranch folks were accounted for at our airbnb. This is where things got fun. All 7 of us started to get ready for the wedding, and it was just like old days at the ranch the day of the Cheyenne rodeo with too many people and not enough mirror space!

The joy these women exhuberate is amazing.

The wedding itself was absolutely gorgeous, phenomenal, and mind-blowing. It was the first wedding I have ever been to, and Chris and Liz pulled out all the stops for this party, that’s for sure! It was very strange to see all us ranch people dressed up. I was so used to seeing all these people in jeans, button downs, and cowboy hats that suits and makeup was weird now! I think one of the guests at the ranch who was at the wedding came up to us staff and said he didn’t recognize us without all the mud. Go figure, I guess!

The beautiful couple walking down the aisle.

The lovely Katie and I in front of the plantation (with a surprise appearance by my dinosaur purse)

I think Liz L (4th from the left) made the best face.

The first dance

Yea, you saw this right-they had a firework show at the end of the reception!!!

All the ranch peeps!!

We ate, we danced, I cried when Liz came down the aisle, and it was quite a party to say the least. After fighting the Mardi Gras traffic home (because on top of everything else, this weekend was Mardi Gras of course) we changed out of our fancy getups and I crashed in bed.

Sunday morning was hard, because it was time to say goodbye. It’s never goodbye forever, but with ranch people, it always seems so. My heart is like a balloon when I’m with them. It’s so full and light, but when we have to part, it feels like it pops and shatters because I miss my friends so much. I sat at the Baton Rouge airport for 7 hours because my flight wasn’t supposed to leave until 5:00 PM.

Sunday morning makeup and breakfast at the house.

It is at this point that I would now like to award the MVP’s for this trip. 1) Tatum Utley for picking me up in Atlanta when Katie was too sick, and if she didn’t, well I might not have gotten to this wedding. 2) Gabriel at the MSNBC kiosk store in the BR airport. I picked up a book and begged him to let me sit right outside the store and he could keep an eye on me and let read it without having to pay for it. I was so surprised that he said yes, and it did kill all the time I had. THANK YOU GABRIEL, I TRULY WOULD HAVE GONE MAD! The book was so fantastic and impactful it will be getting its own blog post soon, so be on the lookout.

My flight to Atlanta was delayed because of the tornadoes and rainstorms that were coming in, and I was so scared I was going to be stuck in the Atlanta airport for the night.  I got on the flight, and before we landed the flight attendants were able to tell me that the Atlanta to Portland flight was also delayed. PRAISE. GOD. I timed myself getting from D terminal to A terminal (which was about a mile, no joke), and if that second connection hand’t been delayed, I would not have made it and that was the LAST flight into Portland for the night. I did not expect to get my week’s worth of cardio running in gypsy pants through the Atlanta airport, and if I had known what a sprint it would be, well let’s just say I would have worn a sports bra. Luckily I made it with time to spare, and got on the  plane for the second to last stretch of travel.

Once we landed at midnight and I turned airplane mode off on my phone, I got messages from my friend Rikki saying she could pick me up and drop me off in Gorham since she was on her way there anyway. WHAT!? Keep in mind, it is now 1 AM, and I now do not have to pay for a cab back home!!! We drove home in the snowstorm, alone on the roads, and it was so much better than paying for a random man to drive me home after the day I just had. God is just so good sometimes.

I collapsed in my bed at 2:00 am with my alarm set for 8:30 am for class. But as you now know, today was a snow day, and I had all of today to catch up on sleep, do my laundry, take a shower, clean my room, and write this post and begin to process all that happened this weekend. Glen Cummings gets the honorable mention for this trip for cancelling school all day today.

So now I am starting to save up for the next one-Katie’s wedding in Texas in May! People think I’m absolutely out of my mind to spend so much money and travel so far for just a wedding, but it is such an honor that Liz wanted me to share in the happiest day of her life with her, how could I refuse? Y’all know how much friendships mean to me. This is just something friends do (good ones, at least).

No matter how many states I have to cross or tornadoes I have to dodge, I’ll be there.

Pan American to the Bayou (2019)

I. Portland, ME

The snow is lingering, and a long day ends

in Portland in the bed of a friend with

mulled apple cider lulling us to sleep.

II. Philadelphia, PA

It’s disgusting out here in Philly,

but after all, this is only a stop. 

A pause, after the tip-toed sprint to the gate to keep going…

III. Atlanta, GA

Georgia was hot compared to home.

Muggy air and chick-fil-a to kick off the 9 hour drive to Baton Rouge,

this is the start of my first time through the deep south-

Alabama, Mississippi, while we listen to a Bill Murray documentary and the

local radio stations driving through the rolling hills.

IV. Mobile, Alabama

In Mobile, I got my tastes of southern hospitality and collard greens,

and I liked the hospitality better. 

People eat so much food in the south-portion control is not a thing!

Biscuits, all day every day, food fried and smothered with all the 

yummy greasy things that are absolutely terrible for you!

And now I now why they say everything in the south is bigger. 

V. Baton Rouge, LA

My eyes were to heavy to see Mississippi,

but we pulled in on fumes to Baton Rouge at midnight. 

The wedding was in full swing, 

a happy couple glowing white, with a party that pulled no punches

And all the friends from ranch life gathered and stay together. 

It’s funny because I see not our fancy dresses and suits but jeans and button downs and cowboy hats and mud. 

These people that I’ve lived through the trenches with, all bonded by that, now drinking champagne and wearing heels. 

On Sunday morning, 

there is nothing left in the house besides paper towels of lipstick kisses and lonely echoes as we all head out the door. 

And I wonder 

(I hate when I wonder)

when the next time we will have this will ever come again. 

I cried in Louisiana

and it was no surprise ’cause it’s so darn humid here, and it’s only right that I should saturate too. 

What an escape, if only for a weekend, and so soon it will be back to the normal routine with my yankee friends. 

This double life of cowboy and Bean boots will tug at your heartstrings,

wising so bad for both the rocky oceans of New England (which is home) and the high mountains of the West (where life, even I will admit, is just simpler sometimes)

As I slowly make my way home from a truly Pan-American trip, I wonder if anyone else lives this double-life like I do

But I catch myself,

because I know that I’m the only one who can live this (my) life. 

Wild adventures will teach you that, no matter what state in this great nation you call home. 

~J

PS: Guess what! I found a surprise at the Cracker Barrel in Alabama-Moxie! I laughed my head off so hard-who would have thought that awful (in my opinion) Maine drink would be in a store all the way in Alabama. Why do people like this stuff???