Jasmine Tea with Milk and Honey

I'm sitting in the Tea Shop, the campus cafe at Mills, waiting to visit some old friends. It's quite, quite odd to be back. On the one hand, I feel like a professor is going to come sprinting from the math building, scolding and askin where I've been all semester-- and on the other hand, I worry that an old professor or friend will come up to me and say, "Aell,?you graduated. How come you're here? Why don't you have a job?!?"

And on yet another hand? I can't get over how beautidul this campus is. Or how many vastly different me's walked down these sidewalks during the last four years. Graduation is a blur. I never truly felt a sense of pride in my graduating class, and the pride in my school also took a while, but eventually got there. I wasn't a Mills student. I was a Mills Math student. Those were my people. They really really were. 

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I wrote that while waiting on campus yesterday and then some of those exact math people showed up. People I haven't seen in months, and one who I really felt that I met for the first time during that conversation yesterday.

After chatting with them about the problems of the world - both the world at large and our own personal worlds - I went and had another quintessential Bay Area experience and got stuck in traffic. (California driving - it's just not really California unless you hit traffic and then are speeding and getting passed on both sides simultaneously) But after I made it through the traffic, I met up with some people who really were instrumental in my last semester at Mills and the summer after.

We had dinner and spent the night at the place they were house-sitting. It's a house in Kensington, above Berkeley, and was simply stunning. Plus, being dog people, they had their dogs with them in addition to the two that live in that house already. I always forget how happy it makes me to be around animals, but I wasn't five feet from one all yesterday and this morning, and my heart is glad. Pictures of said animals will follow. Don't feel obligated to enjoy them, but they make me very happy.

Waking up and having tea on this balcony - I asked my friend, "Wow, can you imagine actually living in a place like this?" To which, she replied, "YES." That's the right attitude.

One of the equally photogenic dogs - Finnigan. 

Finn interacting with Mack, the cat, who wouldn't take no for an answer last night and subsequently slept directly on top of my chest. I am more of a dog person than a cat person, but when cats purr, I don't suppose there's anything wrong with that. :)

Kamaji, one of my favorite dogs around. We had a lot of great walks during the summer, as you might have seen in pictures.

The sneaky and far-too-intelligent Rosie. Another of my favorites.

 When I woke up (Mack still a-purring - she hadn't moved and apparently neither had I the entire night), I went upstairs and had a cup of jasmine tea with milk and honey with one of my closest friends. That particular beverage will always make me think of these people, this place, and last summer.

Then, after that, I went and had brunch with two other people who were so very important to me while I was at Mills, and we went for a hike in the Oakland hills, out in such fantastic nature that is so incredibly close to civilization but far enough away to feel secluded.  And I drove back so very happy for those people.

I forgot that community that I was part of there. It was really quite lovely to remember.