Aaaahhhhhhh....

The push is over. We've got 5 groups in the field, 2 who've been and gone already (4 if you count Waldorf), and 2 yet to arrive. I've just worked 7 days in a row; the last 5 were insane. I didn't realize how much psychic space everyone was taking up until I got back from yesterday's shuttle. All through Tuesday and Wednesday morning, I was *this* close to falling to pieces at any given moment. I assumed it was just exhaustion. But when I got back from Sharkstooth yesterday (they tried to take that shuttle away from me, but I plead insanity and got it back), the difference was palpable, and the extreme stress was gone. If I had been simply tired, I should still have been, especially since there was still part of a group here, and we still had to clean up after them. But I could feel my soul expanding, and realized that the compression I was feeling was not just a lot of work, it was simply too many people about. Now basecamp is quiet, and I can sit on the palapa without the chance of being driven out by a group doing circle or setting up camp here. Nobody is asking me questions, I'm not trying to remember to do 40 things (well, I am, but they're things for my own benefit). Plus, the snacks-and-coffee routine for the teachers is over, and I can go back to getting involved in tasks rather than just picking up garbage and playing gofer in my fragmented moments of availability. For 2 weeks, I've been listening to "Oh it's so nice here!" "You must love it!" "I wish I could stay here all summer" I don't deny that I'm lucky to be here, but it's hard to keep that top of mind at times, and all I could do with the teachers was smile wanly and agree that sure, it's lovely. Today I can see what they mean.

Yesterday, I went off-roading in an Econoline with 14 passengers, plus a pickup trailer. I was taking a group to the Sharkstooth Trailhead, 15 miles out of Mancos, but a 1 1/2 hour trip. I had been partway up the road before, and knew it was dirt, but when Travis, one of the leaders, pointed out the turn for the last 3 miles, I asked if this was a practical joke. The road was the type you see in Chevy's "Like a Rock" commercials--pitched, uneven, full of pointy stones and water-filled washes. But they were entirely serious, so we trundled along it at a pace that didn't register on the speedometer. Going up one steep hill, we got stuck and stalled, and Caroline, another leader, told me I had to drive faster. So I bumped it up to 5mph, and we promptly got a flat tire. Not just flat. Decimated. And the road was so uneven and our speed so low that we only noticed it because Caroline wanted to stop for a potty break. I don't know how far we went on it, but the hubcap was only about 20 yards back, so I'm hoping that was where it happened. So in extreme dust and flies, we changed a tire in the middle of the road, turned van and trailer around, and the group decided to just start hiking from there. Nobody at basecamp seemed too surprised or upset, as well they oughtn't be because that road is ridiculous for that type of vehicle. Flat tire changing was a key part of our intern orientation, but I think I'm the only one who's put it into practice. All in all, it was a rather diverting adventure.

Yesterday's other big event was that 4 of us interns went into Cortez to see Harry Potter. I had intended to wait until Friday, but everyone was going, and the idea of getting out of basecamp and making my day off start early appealed, so I went. The movie was fun, it was ok, but probably the least satisfying of any for readers of the books. It wasn't so much based on the book as based on a bullet list of plot points, some of them shoehorned awkwardly into passing dialogue. Harry and Ginny hooked up (sort of), Harry and Dumbledore checked out a couple of memories and went to a cave (made out of black glass Legos and with water filled with Gollum clones instead of Inferi), Snape did the dastardly deed, and oh by the way, Lupin and Tonks are on a pet-name basis. And Harry's allowed to roam London alone, he & Ginny did an M. Night Shyamalan, Children-of-the-Corn sort of showdown with Death Eaters, and the Weasleys' house got immolated on Christmas Eve. And hope you enjoyed it because the end of the movie had no climax. The cave and Astronomy Tower scenes in the book were taut, fraught, page turners. In the movie, they were subdued and emotionless. I understand that the movie can't follow the book precisely (the Voldemort edition of This Is Your Life would be feature-length all by itself), but a lot of the changes were either totally gratuitous (the house burnings were just thrown in there for the hell of it) or maudlin and manufactured (Dumbledore's dead! Hold up your lighters, kids!) I understand that time and intelligence constraints require removing the meaning from every scene (Snape's critical "Don't call me coward!" moment was rendered so insignificant, I'm not sure it actually happened), but the lack of understanding of the characters' subtleties continues to annoy me. A minor itch is Lupin being outwardly emo, instead of the careful calm I love so much. But why does nobody "get" Dumbledore? When he says he likes knitting patterns, he's being wry, not daft. So instead of drily explaining why he's been so long in the loo, now he's stealing Muggle magazines? Come on! Like the 5th movie, this one had a couple of lines that were humorous and clever, but unlike the 5th movie, this one disappointed, with more faults and oversights than understanding.