Survival Kit

Survival Kit

I’ve never been under any delusion or misconception that my lifestyle choices can be challenging to my friends and family, in particular my parents. Living without a phone is a lot like being in a foreign country, except that here I can drive fifteen or twenty minutes “to civilization” any time I want to, then I get to come back up the hill to this peaceful place where the stars are bright, the pace is slow, and I sleep soundly without earplugs for the first time in god knows how long.

Oh, and when I did live in a foreign country I had a telephone that worked most of the time. So this is the same, but very, very different.

I got this email tonight from my dad. The title is “Goody Package”

Hey Jaime,

I sent you some lights, knives and tools- sort of a survival kit for living in rural New Mexico.

Couldn’t send it UPS because of the PO Box, so sent it regular mail. Can’t track it so let me know when you receive.

Love,

Dad

Now, I don’t know that my city slicker dad knows a lot about life in rural New Mexico, but it just breaks my heart break open that he put together a Goody Package/Survival Kit for me, and I’m certain he knows more about rural New Mexico (and his daughter) than I know.

{NOTE: I have received several cards and notes from my mom and a few friends, but seeing as the post office is the only thing this semi-city slicker girl can walk to I’d like to formally announce that my P.O. Box is actively accepting notes and parcels. I also happen to be a great pen pal; one friend said “best ever” the other day.

Jaime Stathis, P.O. Box 95, San Cristobal, NM 87564}

A few posts ago I mentioned that Abby’s mixtape CD was a true survival kit the night I hit the elk, and that Neil Young singing “Lotta Love” has become an anthem for this time in my life. All of the CDs are loaded with spectacular music, but Abby’s introduced me to a few new artists including one band called First Aid Kit.

“To a Poet” melts me every time. WordPress changed a few things about how you can post videos, and I put the link in a box at the top, but it turns up not as a video but as a link called “Survival Kit” right under the title that says ‘Survival Kit.” That’s a lot of surviving.

I hope you can listen to it here on this YouTube link, but if you can’t please google it or just go ahead and buy it on iTunes. The lyrics alone don’t do it justice, but here they are:

First Aid Kit, “To A Poet”

And you said, “Don’t give me nothing
You don’t want to lose”
I said, “Darling, I’ll give you everything I got
If I want them to choose”

Then I got on a plane and flew
Far away from you
Though unwillingly I left
And it was so, so hard to do

The streets here at home had rapidly filled up
With the whitest of snow
And they don’t make no excuse for themselves
And there’s no need, I know

Now I miss you more than I can take
And I will surely break
And every morning that I wake
God, it’s the same
There’s nothing more to it,
I just get through it
Oh, there’s nothing more to it
I just get through it

It always takes me by surprise
How dark it gets this time of the year
And how apparent it all becomes
That you’re not close, not even near

No matter how many times I tell myself
I have to be sincere
I have a hard time standing up
And facing those fears

But Frank put it best when he said
“You can’t plan on the heart”
Those words keep me on my feet
When I think I might just fall apart

Now I miss you more than I can take
And I will surely break
And every morning that I wake
God, it’s the same
There’s nothing more to it,
I just get through it
Oh, there’s nothing more to it
I just get through it
Oh, there’s nothing more to it
I just get through it

And so I ask where are you now
Just when I needed you
I won’t ask again
Because I know there’s nothing we can do
Not now, darling, you know it’s true

;