my next chapter

"Here's one final question. Why do you want to be a Rangel Fellow?"

Matt was playing the part of my interviewer to help me prepare for pretty much the single biggest opportunity of my life, and he was doing a great job of it. He had already peppered me with questions on foreign relations - asking me on the spot to outline essays on topics such as the role of multilateral organizations in global conflicts.

I paused to think about my answer - why do I want to be a Rangel Fellow? It was a great question - and an obvious one, and somehow I hadn't thought of it yet. I knew in my gut, in my heart, deep in me from the moment that I heard about the program that I wanted it, that it was my calling - if I can be so bold to say that. But how could I put that in words?

Last fall, I spent some time visiting the graduate schools in which I was interested. At the information session for one of them, a fellow attendee and I clicked immediately. She mentioned that she was applying for the Rangel Program - a fellowship designed to increase the number of minorities and low-income people in the Foreign Service. Excited, I spent my bus ride home reading the Rangel website and learning more about the application process.

Congressman Charlie Rangel founded the Rangel Program - a House member from New York. Today, the program is funded by the Department of State and run out of Howard University. A grand total of 20 fellows are chosen each year - a tiny number that intimidated me! These Fellow spend the summer before they matriculate into graduate school doing an internship on Capitol Hill - either for a Senate or House committee or with a Congress member. The Fellowship provides generous funding for graduate school that is matched by most international relations programs. The second summer, the Fellows take on an internship in an overseas embassy. After finishing the second year of graduate school, the Fellows go directly into the Foreign Service (FS). The Fellowship includes a 5 year contract in the FS.

I put everything I am into that Rangel Fellowship application, let me tell you. I daydreamed about it every waking hour. And dreamed about it in my slumbering hours. I shed tears of hopefulness, even.

When I found out I had been chosen as a finalist, I don't know if I've ever been more excited - or more nervous - for anything in my life. The selection process for choosing the Fellows was a full day - a panel interview and a writing test. I was terrified to my core because the stakes were so high. Rangel, in my mind, is too good to be true. So, you know, just the single most important interview of my life. No pressure, right?

I felt myself starting to well up as I finally responded to Matt's question.

I want to be a Rangel Fellow because the Fellowship is more to me than a free-ride to graduate school. I don't want just five years in the Foreign Service; I want an entire career.

I want to be a Rangel Fellow because I believe in the power of diplomacy for making positive change in the world, promoting peace, spreading democracy, and strengthening global ties, and I want to contribute to that important work. 

And I want to be a Rangel Fellow because even if I'm not chosen, I believe in this program. I believe in its mission of diversifying the Foreign Service, of giving a chance to people like me from single parent and low-income homes, to give voice to their experience and use that breadth of diversity to make American diplomacy even stronger.

Just three days after I answered Matt's question, I was sitting in a movie theater waiting for the 10:30pm opening night showing of Veronica Mars (amazing) to start. I opened my email, and my life changed, and all my dreams came true.

I'm a Rangel Fellow. 

2 years

I fell into love like a lanky teenager grows into their limbs. That's a weird analogy, right? But it fits me just right.

I always expected real love to be like the movies - that's how I learned about it all, after all. And books, of course! I expected that if you found the right person, everything would just neatly and cleanly fall into place, and happiness really would be ever after. Love has never been like that for me, though. I've loved twice, maybe three times, and with both - or all three - of those men, it has been turbulent, rocky, kind of psychotic feeling in its intensity. I'm stubborn and independent, but I also want to be comforted, validated, and doted on. But as soon as the men I have loved do those things - and oh, those first two loves! They comforted, validated, doted to the max! As soon as they did those things I thought I needed, so desperately wanted, I kicked and punched and fought and pulled away. Then when I pushed them away, I ran back. I was emotionally all over the place.

I'll never forget the first time I had one of those moments with Zan. We'd been dating a short time - we were in that uncomfortable transition between dating and becoming a real thing - you remember that spot? It was somewhere around noon, and I hadn't eaten. He notoriously doesn't keep breakfast food in his house, and I am a person who needs every. single. meal. I have low blood sugar, and I am a beast if I don't eat. I was upset at him for not thinking of me and stocking his kitchen, but I was passive aggressive about it. Instead of telling him, I gave him the cold shoulder, mean looks, and eventually picked a full-on fight. We were driving somewhere, and I demanded he turn the car right back around because I was going home, dammit! He turned the car around without another word, parked on the street in front of his building, and I stormed out. Without a purpose or a mission because where was I going? And of course I wanted to go back.

He yelled after me, "I'm not coming after you. I won't do this."

And you know what? For the first time ever in a relationship, I walked back, swallowed my pride, apologized, and told him what was up with me.

Let me tell you, it took about a billion of those types of incidents for me to get it through my thick skull that walking away is not the answer. (And, okay, sometimes it is still my knee-jerk reaction. But hey, working on it!)

That was the moment, I think, when I knew this was for real, and I had found the kind of man that can handle me. Yep, not the "dream" man or the perfect man or the one, as so many people say. But a man that I respect to my very core, a man who knows not to indulge when I'm overreacting but absolutely indulges me when I need to cry something out, talk something out, sleep something off, or simply hug it out. A man who has my back. A man who is so right for me.

Relationships are so hard. My mom always said that as I grew up. That they're "hard work." Do you know... that sounded so dumb to me. Love is bliss! Love is fun and exciting and new feelings, and love is perfection, I thought. Surely, she didn't know what she was talking about. But like most things in life, mom is alright right.

Maybe we were both right. Love is bliss, and love is exhilarating and often sucks the very breath from my lungs, but relationships? Now they are hard work.

I have to work at becoming as emotionally independent as I am physically.

We have to work at communicating. No, seriously, we are the two most stubborn people on the face of the planet, and so we fight. We really do. Straight up yelling at each other kind of fights. It happens! Over the dumbest things, too, you don't even know. We're both so fiercely stubborn that we both have to really work on learning when to back down and let the small things go. That, I tell you, is some of the hardest work I've ever done.

I have to work at letting go of my preconceived notions about relationships. This relationship thing isn't what it looks like in romantic novels or '90s Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock movies. Real life relationships are sometimes boring. Sometimes we find ourselves sitting on the couch on a Saturday afternoon, together, absolutely bored out of our minds. Okay, that's mostly me. He's pretty content doing nothing. Real life relationships don't end with Zan climbing a fire escape to bring me a dozen roses and profess his undying love for me, all the while facing his fear of heights, after a big fight. It's pretty okay with me if we both just say "I'm sorry" and talk about how to communicate better next time. But sometimes he also brings flowers, and that's pretty great, too. And he has faced his fear of heights for me more than a few times - remember the ledge hike in Ecuador? So maybe he really is my Prince Charming, after all.

I have to work at loving him. Oh! The just being enamored of him and fighting the smile that wants to play on my lips when he looks particularly cute in the middle of an argument -that is easy. But the part where I am intentional about making room in our shared lives for the things he wants to do (instead of just hike, hike, hike like I want to!), that is work. And being intentional about making him feel loved in the ways that make him feel the most loved, that takes thought and effort. That's the kind of work that is most special to me. It's my favorite.

So anyway. To get back to my original point - about love being like fitting into awkwardly lanky limbs - that's what this relationship has been like for me. It has been slow and steady. I started out unsure and always always always questioning. Always doubting. I never knew I had such a Doubting Thomas in me, but it's true. I do. Every time he got too close in the beginning and saw me a little more raw, a little more open and honest and imperfect, I pulled away. I was uncomfortable with real love and even more uncomfortable with a real relationship.

But two years in, today, I remember back to the night he left a March madness basketball game to come all the way to H Street NE to meet me for just a single drink in a bar that now no longer exists.

And as I think back to that night, when he said goodbye to me on the sidewalk with a simple hug, nervousness and questions and uncertainty written all over both of our faces, I think that I've grown into this thing. I fit perfectly into our relationship. We fit perfectly.

Happy two years, Zander.

swimming with sea lions in the galapagos

 From my journal... 

I carried our clean clothes from the laundromat up the last hill to our guesthouse, and I sighed. With the weight of the clothes and the complaints from my feet. And in that moment I felt like a natural, a local - like I lived here, almost. That's the sweet spot of traveling - the moment when assimilating feels closer than being a tourist.

Our last day in the Galapagos was more perfect than I could have imagined it would be. Zan and I took a Viator tour to La Loberia Island off of Santa Cruz. I'm writing about it for viator.com, and that's what it feels like to be a travel writer. It feels pretty great.

We were wary of a tour - aren't I always? So the joys were unexpected. Standing a foot from a blue-footed booby while a marine iguana sunned at its wide-webbed feet - it was wild experiencing nature like that. My wide feet, clad in blue Toms, fit right in with the peculiar and beautiful bird's. Later in the day we swam with sea lions. We ungracefully flapped our limbs, those dangly arms and legs unsuited for aquatic life. We took enormous breaths and plunged as deep into the ocean's surface as our ears could handle to see the sea lions glide and dive with grace and ease. They were dancers down there. I came eye-to-eye with one and could have stayed there for an eternity if I didn't have those pesky human lungs.

Later we hiked to a natural swimming hole - Las Grietas. We walked in our swimsuits, ocean water still dripping, in sandals and flip-flops, over lava rocks and an expansive pink salt mine. I scaled boulders taller than me, piled one on top of the other, next to each other, supporting each other, until I reached one 10 meters high. I had to sit on my butt and scoot forward inch by inch, stretching my legs and pointing my toes as hard as I could to balance while trying to reach the narrow ledge of the rock right below it. And then I stood on that bulging boulder, the ledge thinner than the length of my feet, holding on to the one behind me for life - and a twig of a branch reaching out from a crevice in the rock beside me. The water was so clear I could see the rocky bottom from the sky, it seemed. And in that moment, it felt like I was standing on the sky. I counted to three- 1...2...3... fifteen times, but finally, on one of those "3s," I jumped.

The adrenaline rush and pounding of my heart could only be matched by the thrill of the ice cold water rushing over me. I'm a junkie.

We watched the sunset back on the boat with eyes wide open, eager to hold on to the moment for as long as it could last. Our boat captain cut the engine right as the sun started to fade, and he shhh'd us all and pointed. And there, a foot from the boat, two larger-than-life sea turtles were rolling over each other, first one's hard shell popped to the surface and a second second later, the next. They were mating. We watched with rapt attention and awe. So that's how they do it, you know we were all thinking. 

We ate ice cream twice - once after lunch and again after dinner. We shopped for final Christmas gifts and souvenirs. We walked slowly down Santa Cruz's streets, and savored life as we were experiencing it.

Zan almost didn't stay on Santa Cruz today. He considered taking the 2pm ferry back to San Cristobal and meeting me there tomorrow for our flight. Exhaustion almost got the best him. But at the very very last second - right as the tour guide arrived at our hotel - he changed his mind. I'm so glad he stayed and we powered through our fatigue. We were rewarded a thousand times over.

Ciao ciao the local people say in the native language Quichua to say goodbye. Ciao ciao, Galapagos Islands. 

recipe | prosciutto wrapped mozzarella

 d

Zan suggested that we stay in and cook for a date night this past Friday. At first, I nixed that idea and suggested we try to get into Rose's Luxury - the restaurant de jour in DC. By Thursday night, we were both worn out from the week and the thought of making our way across town, joining a 2-3 hour long waiting list (for real) and sipping drinks at a bar until we got a table seemed daunting, at best. I circled back to his original idea to stay in, offered to cook, and asked him politely to bring at least one bottle of bubbles from his wine fridge because, you know, it's a day that ends in a "y." And - if you ask me, every Friday should be celebrated with the sound of a pop and fizz.

I came across this unbelievably simple recipe for prosciutto wrapped mozzarella a few months ago. It got buried on my Pinterest board, and I am kicking myself because I could have been enjoying this incredible appetizer/lunch/breakfast/any meal/every meal for months. But at least now I've righted my wrong, right? This is the easiest appetizer I've ever made. It requires two ingredients, an oven, a frying pan, and enough will power not to devour the entire ball in one sitting. Alone.

Fortunately, I had Zan to help me.

ingredients
fresh mozzarella ball
4-6 slices of prosciutto (i say get the real, imported stuff - go big or go home!)

steps
warm up your oven to 350 degrees
use paper towels to dry off the mozzarella ball as best you can. don't worry - they don't stick!
wrap the ball in the prosciutto. it'll stick on its own.
sear the ball on both sides for 1 minute on each in a small frying pan over medium heat
set the ball on a baking sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes. keep an eye on it - when it starts to melt on the sides, it's close to done. much longer, and it will become a melted mess (but that's delicious, too)

i drizzed olive oil on small italian bread slices and toasted them on the same baking sheet
we used a knife our fingers to cut tear off chunks of the ball onto our bread
it pairs delightfully well with bubbles, just saying!
enjoy!

the swing on the edge of the world | baños, ecuador

If all I had was 24 hours to spend in Baños, I'd do it again. Zander and I stood at the airport in San Cristobal in the Galapagos, and we talked through the rest of our time in Ecuador - just barely 48 hours. It would take us 12 hours to get to Baños, and we'd have less than 24 to spend there before a 4 hour bus ride back to Quito on the same day we would have to catch our flight back to the States. We said it'd make more sense to do something closer to Quito for our last day. We said what if the bus was late? What if we missed our flight back to the States? We said it wasn't worth it.

We went to Baños anyway.

We traveled 12 hours to get to a tiny city that's more like a town - colorful streets, old churches with marked Spanish influence, volcanoes and mountains rising from the edges of the valley, all of it walkable in less than an hour or two. We went all the way there to see La Casa del Arbol in person - an old wooden tree house situated on the edge of a cliff, looking out over a volcano. We didn't have a hotel booked, and the city was jam-packed in those few days after Christmas and before New Year's. It was completely irrational -- and that's what makes it so unforgettable.

A thick, chunky, strong branch extends out from the tree house and dangling from it, jostling over land and then thin air with just the right breeze, a simple wooden swing secured by ropes. The images are breathtaking - and terrifying. "Swing if you dare" seems to be the motto. And adventurers from all over the world do dare to sit back on the wooden bench, their hands gripping the rope, everything in them hoping that this isn't the time when the rope breaks or the branch gives, and they push off, their feet kicking off dirt and grass and within seconds dangling over nothing but air. We dared to.

I scooted back onto the wooden bench swing and wrapped my hands around the rope. I walked backwards until the rope was taught and took a running kick start before swinging up over the cliff. That day the skies were gray, and heavy clouds obscured the view. Round, full raindrops popped on our cheeks, our hair, our clothes, threatening a bigger storm to come.

We met a photographer - a student at Emerson in Boston, and I excitedly told him that my best friend went there, too. He and his friends were in Ecuador for a scuba diving trip in the Galapagos. They only had a few days on the mainland, and they were spending them in Baños, just to see and experience this swing on the edge of the world.

The city is nestled in a valley surrounded by volcanoes - notably, Tungurahua volcano. Waterfalls cascade down steep mountainsides - some are as easy to spot as the giant one on the edge of the city; others are reached by a 20 minute drive and a hike, if you're willing. There are ATVs, bicycles, and scooters to rent at side-by-side shops that line the streets. There are public hot springs - some in walking distance from anywhere within the city and others more remote in the mountains, accessible by a drive. There's white water rafting, ziplining through the dense jungles, splunking in the deep crevices of caves, and just about any other adventure activity you can imagine.

With all those volcanoes flanking the city, a person might wonder how anyone takes their chances living there. There's a deep-rooted religiosity and a little bit of superstition- a belief that the city has been saved and will always be protected by the Virgin Mary. And so a statue of her rests on one of the highest points around, visible from all over the city.

We wandered back to our hotel around hour 18 of 24, full from dinner and silly from wine. We spotted Mary, cast in a green glow from a source we never did find. A couple that we had met in the Galapagos walked past us, and we all stopped to chat. In our hotel room, we stood out on the balcony and listened to the La Cascada de la Virgen waterfall before going to sleep.

I'm glad we went to Baños anyway.