Public Figures Who Are Rocking My World

... just thought i would share:



in particular, I'd like to give a shout out to Mr. Stewart, who may have become my personal life hero when he *apologized* Thursday night 4/30 for a joke he made that in retrospect he decided... he actually didn't agree with and felt icky about. Thanks Jon for not only being my favorite and most effective form of therapy in the days as we find them but for having integrity and recognizing that even comedians must have "a line."

You rock Fareed Zakaria, Susan Boyle, Jim Wallis, President Obama, Colin Powell, and Jon Steward. You rock!

Chocolate News Came to Lindy Groove

Okay, so actually Chocolate News (David Alan Grier) was canceled... i believe. But David Alan Grier came to Lindygroove.

He's on Dancing with the Stars this season and they decided to add in Lindy Hop instead of (or in addition to?) what they always lamely referred to as "the swing," which looked like a ballroom-y mixture of uneducated swing variations with too much flair. Ug. I almost couldn't watch when they would do "the swing."

Strange though it was to have the familiar place all aglow with the literal lights of Hollywood and people trying to get into those lights, it was, after all... kinda fun.

So, I just watched the YouTube videos from their performances and maybe 3 of the 6 actually looked and sounded and dressed like they were dancing Lindy. I don't regularly watch the show (though i did get to go to a taping with Mags and Scott during the Emmet Smith tapings), but i of course had to watch all the Lindy (plus lil' Kim dancing the Tango) to see how they did. b Ty, the country singer, and his partner were great, the best i would say. But Mr. Grier did awesome even if his partners outfit was a bit much. He's a charmer and a good dancer. I was annoyed that neither of Ty nor David got the high score for that category.

The other folks kept saying things like "Lindy is all about tricks and flash." This annoyed me. While yes, i suppose that aerials were very much a part of the dance from the beginning, to me it seems Lindy is more about the feeling. Trademarks are the delicious swing out and the athletic (not ballroom) posture. It does have a European-ballroom eight-count but yet it is really a playful street dance... not a flashy tricky ballroom one. Lindy was Afro-America's response to the Charleston, which informs and finds it's way into Lindy, but it is not itself Lindy. Alas.

Ladies and gents, David Alan Grier learning Lindy and then performing:


You did great David, keep on lindygroovin'

One of the grandfather's of swing is turning 95 in May and in his honor and to celebrate the transformation so many of us have found in our Harlem honey named Lindy, some folks started this web-project called IamLindyHop... thanks to Ronaldo for the tip-off.

Throw Tomatoes at AIG... and Sign a Petition

Moveon.org has a cathartic solution to our AIG angst. Throw tomatoes at them! But...virtually of course.

Sometimes i think when we have a safe and satisfying way to get our aggression out, we'll prevent future agro-behavior. So... have at it. They also have a petition that can be signed and sent to congress, which is possibly a bit more constructive, but nonetheless secondary in terms of immediate need. Release first, constructive behavior second. Throw tomatoes and Move On, eh?

Here's to sweet release, smarter futures, and eventual forgiveness.

From their website:

Hi,

The people at AIG who are most responsible for the severity of the financial crisis should be in jail. But instead, they're slated to get $450 million in bonuses. Infuriating, right?

So a MoveOn member created a game to show just how mad Americans are at AIG. It's called The Great AIG Tomato Toss and it's based on the idea that we should stop throwing money at the people who ruined our economy—and start throwing tomatoes.

Can you play too—and help reach the goal of 5 million tomatoes thrown? http://www.moveon.org/tomato/

Thanks

Life... with a Red Cape.

Yesterday i was in Trader Joe's, the mecca of my shopping life to which i delightedly make a weekly pilgrimage, and i had the most wonderful-yet-jarring collision with myself.

I saw a three-year-old-ish boy with slightly overgrown hair and... gasp... a sparkly red cape. It didn't fly quite straight because it was tied somewhat haphazardly around his neck as the roughness of his movements had tugged at it's grasp and it was probably a hand-me-down, judging by it's wearing and fading. But it was perfect.

He was there with his dad, an Asian dude, who looked more Berkeley than Pasadena, and his six-year-old-ish sister who (of course) had multi-colored glittered shoes. As it is a small market, i managed to see the little guy flying around the store at least four times.

At some point i realized i was practically staring at him like i was at the zoo, which is to say perhaps, a little over-obviously. It's just that this kid and his cape took my breath away, they were speaking to me in some deep ignored place. So, I finally say to their dad, who looks either stoned or exhausted, "Your kids are really cute."

He looks at me while clearly grasping for how he wants to respond... you know he wants to be grateful but honest... just not so honest (read negative) that by the time he finishes i feel the need to call CPS.

It's been several seconds, he's still grasping and managed to get out a "Well..." so i finish for him "Sometimes?"

"Yes," he confirmed "sometimes."

We laugh, sort of. And then in perfect time super-boy manages to escape and heads for the front door, the open air... freedom!

Besides just picking up the regulars of frozen veggie pizza, oatmeal, two cartons of eggs, fish, multi-grain tandoori-nan, goat cheese, salami, and more vegetables than two people should try to eat in a week, I felt really joyful and alive watching this kid who was undoubtedly more spirited because he had a cape--or rather because he knew he had a cape. I mean, i'm sure this kid is a handful without the cape but you could practically see the cape-magic in his eyes; his energy was captivating, frenetic even... which is why the afore mentioned starring-at-him problem.

I am still so struck by him. He was adorable, but that's not it. I was taken by the spirit that this kid had.... it made me see myself more clearly than the dirty bathroom mirror. I am not living my life very courageously, i'm not so spirited, not so inspired... i've lost heart.

Watching this joyful moment of cape-boy flying about the store... i wanted to fasten on my own faded red cape and face the inevitable depressions and frustrations and desolations of life with... more courage, more hope, more heart.

Here's to red capes...

Rest in Peace Mama

Mama, Sam's grandmother, passed away last week in Lagos, Nigeria.

She called Sam by a special name she gave him: Bamewo (sp?) meaning "God protect him." Her death was sudden and unexpected even though she was long in years. When we spoke to her over best-rate-calling-cards, she referred (sweetly) to me as yeomi (wife) or Rose. Rose is a shared name between us. She was often reminding Sam, sometimes through his mother, "You take care of Rose. That Rose, she is a gift." We are grateful for her life, her love--so sad that it is no longer with us.

May you rest in peace.

Mama, pictured here with Sam's sister Deborah in Mama's home in Lagos, Nigeria.

Gracias a La Vida

A friend from work sent me an email filled with music. The subject titled simply though aptly "musica para la alma."

He filled it with beautiful latin-orchestral fusions and traditional canciones and a plethora of Mercedes Sosa. He had sent them to me because he was delighted to discover that i knew something of the music of America Latina, of revolution, and of the deepest places of the soul. He also knew that i took some time off work and wasn't doing very well... so i think this was his electronic Chicken Soup, or rather, perhaps Pozole.

I spent some time perusing them and landed upon a you tube video of Mercedes Sosa singing Violeta Parra's poem "Gracias a la Vida." Several years ago i reflected on a conversation of this poem, Parra's subsequent suicide, and make-shift memorial crosses while in Arizona here. This poem is so lovely it literally hurts when i read it, though tragic is it's unwritten ending. And when i hear it i just have to pause and feel and to be honest not much makes me do that these days. I've let the soft fleshy layers of my heart harden a bit and i needed something to hack into it.

I was very taken by this song, this poem tonight. I was taken by my ingratitude for life, my lack of awareness. I have of late felt so frustrated and caged by my body which seems always angry at me, always waging wars of pain and infection and i just can't seem to make it better. So i chose anger, frustration, fear, hopelessness, bitterness, numbness, sarcasm, or some noxious cocktail of two or more. This e-pozole sending friend must have known that which is why he sent me some musical companions.

Music, sometimes worship, other times as cathartic meditation, can allow me a gateway into or out of something. And i needed a way back to gratitude and just a lens outside of my body. I generally don't find perspective hard to come by unless we are talking about long-term personal suffering blithely refered to biblically as long-suffering. But I've been dipping my toe in the water of joy again, amidst the various dis-integrations of my body and soul, and it's, well, f*word refreshing. Disfruta!

Gracias a La Vida
Thanks to Life - partial English lyrics

"...Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me the ability to walk with my tired feet.
With them I have traversed cities and puddles
Valleys and deserts, mountains and plains.

And your house, your street and your patio.

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me a heart, that causes my frame to shudder,
When I see the fruit of the human brain,
When I see good so far from bad,
When I see within the clarity of your eyes...

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me laughter and it gave me longing.
With them I distinguish happiness and pain—
The two materials from which my songs are formed,
And your song, as well, which is the same song.
And everyone's song, which is my very song."

Complete Lyrics in Spanish
Complete Lyrics in English

Sigh... yes, AT LAST!

So, why did the Obamas choose to dance to Etta James "At Last" for their inuagural ball first-dance(s)? And did they choose it for each other or for us?

Were they dancing together and with us Americans to that song? Were we all taking that "At Last" sigh of relief akin to bride and groom on wedding night? Or was it just because it has become so popular (bordering on cliche) especially for wedding first dances and it was rhythmic and bluesy enough to be acceptable?

I'd really like to believe it was chosen for us (so self-centered i am!) and not just a pop-choice. Second best option is that it was an important song to Michelle and Barack--yes, second best. Either way, though, it was lovely. They were lovely. And it felt slightly embarrassing to peer in on them for the three-ish minutes of song, but i did. Even John Stewart Daily Show 01.21.2009 (about 5 minutes in) couldn't make fun of their lovely dancing.

I, of course, made Sam watch the whole inaugural ceremony and a few of the balls with me, though we'd already seen and heard the speeches and poems and songs multiple times that day. But i wanted to do it together. He agreed, somewhat begrudgingly at first. I sort of got him on the idea that when someone asked ten, twenty years from now "Where were you when Obama was inaugurated" i wanted Sam to be in the memory. Duh.

The this-is-important-to-me-damn-it point must have really gotten across to Sam because about thirty seconds into the first-dance song during the Neighborhood Ball with Beyonce belting the tune, Sam asked me to dance. And there in our pajamas on our very un-vacuumed floor watching and listening on our hand-me-down TV, we danced alongside the Obamas. And this is how i will remember this most wonderful day in the life of America.

May it only get better from here.

fillet o' finger and other tales

Yesterday i filleted my finger while making a Thai curry for Sam as a "yay-we've-been-married-five-months" present. He has this day dream of having his own private international chef and eating different cuisine every day. A lofty dream, but thought that a spoonful of fantasy would be a treat. But seriously it looks like i have a finger-gill.

Today i will go to the Huntington and soak in the manicured beauty. Manicured or otherwise i just need to be around beautiful things these days, and as often as possible. I will also give thanks for five months, for not loosing my finger, for Ryan and Teresa's engagement, for Alessandra's 26 years of life. Happy Birthday!

Monday i went on a journey with my friends Ryan and Jeremy--we traveled three hours north up the 101 and it was gorgeous even on a semi-gloomy day. I kept feeling like "have i been trapped in a dungeon for a year and forgot the world was beautiful?" But there has been no dungeon besides my mind and my body... and actually, this was the reason for the journey. We were going to a place called the Healing Rooms a prayer ministry usually connected with Vineyard churches to have people pray for us each, all three of us with our broken-wing issues. Though there were many closer branches to Los Angeles, Ryan said that this one is special and i tend to concur with his judgment of the general specialness (spiritual or otherwise) of given places and people. It was a really good time... both to be with two guys who have been really good friends over the past couple years but also to make a symbolic and literal voyage and to risk hope by inviting prayer.

Now, let me tell you, i love Jesus. I do. I think it's strange that i do, but when i disentangle Jesus from the lore of America I see Him so clearly and i love Him, I believe Him--He becomes in this my Jesus. But nonetheless i never feel super excited to engage myself with prayer and other things that can contain people who may or may not have disentangled Jesus from this fore spoken Amerilore. So, i approach these things with a measure of cynicism. I'm ashamed to admit my hesitance towards Christian fellowship and trust but will prefer honesty to pretense in this particular regard.

I find Christian imagery both beautiful and troubling. I find it comforting and impossible. But when it comes right down to it i absolutely believe it, which is more than just to know. I would find myself completely at home and engaged with a highly theological conversation about "the blood of Jesus" and with a group of overly-critical progressives intellectually deconstructing the cultural anthropology and/or psyche of said group of Christians who believe a, b, or, c about "the blood of Jesus". When i write this it feels schizophrenic, but actually except for in extremely stressful seasons it doesn't feel that way. It feels like critically-thought-out belief. In some mystical sense i am okay with these contradictions. I am not unaware of them and when i have a surplus of time alone i am actually quite at peace with them. The nestle together in my gut like the family cat and dog that squabbled on their first day together.

That "blood of Jesus" reference, by the way, was not arbitrary though i'm not going to elaborate. There was something that happened in that, something important in the prayer time up at the Healing Rooms with these three women who knew me not one bit, except for some divine intervention, that had to do with the blood of Jesus and it's finality. It being finished. There was also a river, and a chase, and a letting go. And then they told me, each of them separately, that they had a burning sense that i was very creative and i needed to do something with that. And what it was would surprise me. They prayed over my imagination to unblock it, to protect it, to fuel it. Uh, so how awesome is that? My cynical self was glad she risked hope. She plans to do it again.

She is also glad we only have 11 more days with the Bush Regime.


....and counting.

Advent Conspiracy

Please enjoy this video i watched on "Space Between" as i was catching up on the blog-o-sphere. It rocked my world and my post-Christmas. It is beautiful and... you know... kinda "edgy" in just the right way. Enjoy:




Thanks Tyler... and Merry Christmas.

Grown Up Christmas

For me, the delight of the holiday season this year was the lovely gratitude of others and the solidification of the truest love.

Christmas was distinctly satisfying and unsatisfying this year. I gained much in terms of thoughtful and helpful gifts and some unexpected insights. I did not, however, suck the marrow from the bone of the season and that is the source of dissatisfaction. I didn't go to church, wasn't particularly reflective nor prayerful, in fact i wasn't even a little bit reflective or prayerful. I didn't really give myself over to advent, to the symbolic waiting and rejoicing of a sacred seasonal remembrance, and i'm sad for that.

This is a bummer because i had a good moment remembering "real Christmas" a week and a half ago when we were at Sam's bible study Christmas Party and we read through a series of bible verses piecing together the "Christmas Story." It was great, always is. I would have thought that i could have kept it closer to the forefront of my mind and heart especially since i was struck dumb when i heard myself read the words of a messenger angel, likely Gabriel:

"'Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger" (Luke 2: 11-12).

The thing that struck me was the "this" that will be the sign to 'you.' It was not a flaming bush, nor a rainbow, nor plagues nor a parting of waters. It was not the cloud of knowing nor a blood red sky. The sign (and person) that the Saviour was born was the picture of a child, rejected by society, wrapped in scrap cloths in an animal barn, because no one made room for an unknown teenage woman on the verge of giving birth. The picture of cruelty that this family faced, that the saviour was born into, was akin to a homeless mother on skid row or a Palestinian woman on the wrong side of the Gaza strip with water broken and labor starting trying to find a sympathetic face to help give her a clean space to bring her child into the world. Jesus is more the crack baby or migrant worker's unexpected child than the Swedish, haloed baby Jesus figurine in nativity scenes.

This sign, this image that God gave to announce, once again (paraphrased, of course), "i am here, i am with you, i am God with you: 'Emmanuel'" was an image that if we want to, we could all intimately relate with... so that we would be able to believe him. He was born rejected, unloved and ill considered by the world, treated like an animal. He wanted to speak esecially to those whose lives are literally thus and to those of us fortunate enough to avoid abject poverty but in whose deepest parts within feel that we are essentially all of these things.

My singular Christmas reflection and then character flaws (inability to stay present and then inability to let that go) aside, it was a particularly thoughtful and heart warming time with my family as i saw how much each of us tried to really create and/or procure gifts for each other that we really needed or wanted. This was sweet. We were eight: my parents, my brother and his partner Shannon, her son Gavin and brother Daniel, Sam and I. We all felt grateful for having a place to belong, where we were welcomed and loved. That is Christmas... welcoming and being welcomed... regardless of all other factors--it is not banishing anyone to the barn (manger) but bringing them in. If you have thirty minutes and want deeper reflection on some of this check out: Ray Bakke 12.29.06, 23 minutes you won't regret. And if you do... let me know why.

But by far the best part about this Christmas was Sam. He bought me a really thoughtful gift and included a note about why. The note was special because i need far more written and spoken words every day from him than he would generally share in a month. So words, my favorite gift, are the most effortful for him and in many ways, therfore, the most special. And he wrapped it; it has been goal for me to help him understand that YES i really do want him to wrap it, even if it's silly. Flowers are silly too and i want them. I may appreciate frugality but it's the unnecessary things of life which tend to make one feel truly special, cherished, acknoweldged.

That being said, i was reminded this Christmas that silliness, romance if you will, is important but it is not the defining characterstic nor most important outflow of love.

I've been quite sick, my body full of pain and exaushstion and migraines coming more frequently. Well, the worst one in a year came on the 26th. It went from a 4 to 9.5 (on the 1-10 pain scale) in 10 minutes flat--i could hardly see, the light was burning my head, and i just started crying which made it worse. Sam sat and rubbed my head, tried to help me stop crying to calm the throbbing, suggested we go to the E.R. to which i quickly rejected. Then i moved him away ran to the bathroom and barely made it to the sink before the projectile vomiting started. Oh how much better the toilet would have been--what a mess! By the time i made it to the toilet, totally unable to think, just existing as a bundle of head and stomach pain... Sam had decided i was going to the hospital. He got me dressed, got my sunglasses and shoes, rinsed my mouth, alerted my parents and grabbed a baggie for the stomach contents that may come up in the car ride. An hour, two drug shots, Benadryl, and a diet coke later and the four of us were home. As it turned out though this worst part of Christmas was also the best: here is for the part where i tell you what true love is.

Sam headed straight to the bathroom where he proceeded to clean the pond o' vomit from the sink, without a complaint, without a single make-me-feel-bad word. He finished and washed up good, gave me a hug, and told me he loved me. Cleaning up someone's vomit with love: I guess it sort of reminds me of choosing to be born in an animal barn, amidst the smells, feces, and pokey hay... just so that the world would know that they are loved, that they are not alone. Eat your heart out Brother Lawrence.

Merry Christmas.

today, a thoughtful reflection

This spoke to me today... and i felt like, hey, you have to restart somewhere... from Sacred Space. Particularly, i was stuck by a priest (Irish, i think) using Nietzsche to solidify his point, and done well. I am, as always, a total sucker for perfect paradox.

Jesus used a curious phrase to his disciples, "Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed own with dissipation and drunkenness" (Luke 21:34). The warning fits. Drink is a narcotic; it dulls our hearts and blunts our reactions. Dissipation may be sold as fun and having a laugh, but the morning-after hangover helps us to realise with Nietzsche that ‘the mother of dissipation is not joy but joylessness.' Joy and moderation go hand in hand. When our hearts are happy, in our own skins are good place to be, and we do not need to be blown out of our minds by alcohol or other drugs. Aquinas observed that a joyful heart is a sure sign of temperance.

i have a pretty ring

the blog radio-silence comes to a close, with the announcement that is obvious by the title. (i think). what a crazy couple of weeks. the last month full of death and homelessness and darkness and then on the other hand with new beginnings, with joy, with the sweetest things.

i have a pretty ring.

sam bought it for me. he picked it out after we looked and looked and talked and talked. i decided i didn't want a diamond center. the big diamonds are nearly impossible to buy ethically. and though we didn't look into the ethical implications of gemstone mining, it seems that steering away from the diamonds was a good thing. it's also significantly more simple in the financial way, even if not inexpensive. most diamonds come from conflict-torn areas where the mining practices are socially and environmentally irresponsible, to put it lightly. and even canadian diamonds, i have discovered, are environmentally troubling.

but let's be honest... i really like diamonds. they are pretty and sparkly and clean-looking. and their value can represent the symbolic value of the relationship. the problem is, however, though they look pretty and sparkly and clean-looking, their relationship with the world is dirty, and ugly, and dull. and although i find colored-gemstones to be just short of tacky (yes i am a snob), i began researching other (non-diamond) stones i could like.

and since i am a total push-over for symbolism, when i discovered my pale-blue antique-looking stone's historical lore... i was nearly won over on the spot. although i do not believe that stones hold mystical power in and of themselves, i do believe that what something means for us can imbue it with a symbolic power. here is a modge podge of info from various jewelry and gemology websites.

calm and cooling in their icy blue coloring, aquamarine engagement rings evoke the constancy and dependability of sea water tides. deriving its name from the latin meaning ‘water and sea’, aquamarine is one of the most fascinating gemstones on our earth. the pure, clear sky blue color continues to epitomize aquamarine bringing out the immaculate transparency and magnificent shine of this gemstone. the color of aquamarine arouses feelings of sympathy, trust, harmony, and friendship, feelings, which prove their worth in lasting relationships. aquamarine is a symbol of beauty, honesty, and loyalty.

since early times, aquamarinehas been believed to endow the wearer with foresight, courage and happiness, it is also said to increase intelligence and make one youthful. aquamarine has a soothing effect on "just married" couples, assisting them in working out their differences and insuring a long and happy marriage. aquamarine is said to re-awaken love in long-married couples and signify the making of new friends. it also provides courage and strengthens the will. aquamarine protects against the wiles of the devil.

one site simply said "the aquamarine is said to bring healing to the wearer." and this kind of sums it up. sea water for me is so healing, the ocean with it's waves, color, constancy and constant newness has always brought me life. and my relationship with sam has been a very healing one. this ring, a promise to marry, also reminds me of the promise that our relationship has already made good on--that of healing.

there are three stones on each side (yes... it is diamond dust, oh the inconsistency!), reminding me of the constant presence of the trinity--and in total, there are seven which is biblically, the number of completion. [hey, i warned you that i am a junky for symbols]. the photos below are unsatisfying and do not really show the ring well, plus i'm all grunged out after a long, awesome engagement weekend o' surprises from sam... but i share them anyway.

anyway, this is just the first of probably several on the proposal, impending wedding, and well, etc. *please*stop yourself from the obligatory response to that thought, as i will do it for you: "duh."

(Bubble-y) Bulletin Board

Occasionally, as you know if you follow this blog, you will find a post that is sort of a modge-podge. I've called it "confetti," or "scrap book," or "....in review," or, uh, "bulletin board." I find them slightly annoying--and i am the one posting! You know i just sort of feel like they are really unsophisticated and unintelligent, but here i go again. (One day i vow to give up the other obnoxious writing flaw of hyper-self-deprecation. For now, you're stuck with it should you choose to keep reading.)

The thing is, annoying or whatever, for whoever out there is reading i just sort of feel like opening up my brain... all the things sort of on the surface, images, random scraps of thoughts, excitement, sadness... and not over think it. So, here we go:

My co-worker who lost her husband is still in intense grieving. She's lost a ton of weight and when you walk into her office you often find her staring at her computer screen with tears in her eyes. There is nothing you can say that is even remotely comforting. And then there has been a tragic death of a woman and one of her twins, while the other twin and her husband have been in critical condition. They were hit by a truck that ran a red light and then the person got out of their car and ran. These are good friends of good friends of Sam and I. It is horrifying. My grieving co-worker, a devout Christian, is almost broken-record like repeating "Why would God do this?" And she must ask it. Is there a good answer, anything that will satisfy. Grief is a terrible beast which cannot be controlled, only experienced. Oh how i wish it wasn't that way.

While Sam and I were at my parent's place (for Christmas) his sister finally sent some photos from his mom's 50th birthday party in North Carolina back at the end of October. It was a great party. Lots of bright colors, good music, and plenty of food! It was fun to see the pictures. Here's a little taste:

I slept through the New Year this year. (But by the way: happy new year!) I think i am kinda exhausted. But i got to spend the next day with Sam. Christmas with my family came and went rather quickly. All the usual trappings, some of them commercial others of a different tenor... all strangely beloved to me. Plus, Sam was with me and that i likey.




Okay, i think that about does it. No wait...

...okay, well, lastly, i had a Don Cheadle sighting. Very exciting. I am not really starstruck, though i do find myself a little mute and confused every time i do have a star sighting in L.A. and it happens more often than i would have thought. But i LOVE Don Cheadle. He's a fantastic actor and based on the totally unrealistic judgements of his characters, he's probably uber cool. What i really wanted to do was walk up to him (we were in Barnes and Noble in Santa Monica on New Year's Day, he was alone) was to walk up and say "i'm a huge fan of your work, thank you!" But Sam restrained me and reminded me how annoying it would be if just a small fraction of the people who thought he was cool did that to him. Alas.

Let It Ring...

I have long pondered the intricacies of the common and yet somehow mystical abstract noun of freedom. These days i am thinking about it a lot, and the thoughts have taken on more specific applications.

---Strand 1---

I once taught a group of chinese-immigrant 5th graders about abstract nouns with freedom as my primary example. Only one of them got it. But this one, May Li, was worth the effort. She did not blithely refer to freedom, in her two paragraph essay, as america, or the bill of rights, or having enough money, nor with other unexplored and un-understood abstract nouns like liberty and justice like all the others had done. She discussed the desire for freedom and yet the reality of it through a description of her relationship with her parents. She summed it up somehow with the unbelievably mature realization that she doesn't always like their rules but she appreciated the protection they gave and knowledge they had that she didn't. She realized that being under her parent's authority limited her "freedom" but that this was something she wanted, for now. Again... unbelievably mature and introspective for ten years old. I wrote "phenomenal" at the top of her page both for her thought process and the quality of her writing. She didn't know what it meant but knew it must be good, as she walked up to me trying to hold her smile back and asked about the word. She tried even harder to conceal her smile when i told her.

---Strand 2---

I am thinking of the sound Christmas bells make. The sound church bells make. They ring and i am thinking of rings a lot these days. Would a simple or ornate combination of precious metals and stones on my left hand ring-finger make me more or less free? How does your typical person answer that? Christian? Woman? Free-thinker? American? Anarchist? Conformist? There is no right answer.

---Strand 3---

When i was first learning to social dance, i marvelled at how i once thought that systematizing dancing would rob it of it's creative expression. I couldn't have been more wrong. I learned that as you take on a discipline and a methodology the creative possibilities only grew. It was like a living breathing chose your own adventure book, but done to music with a partner.

I found the same thing through writing poetry in rhyme-schemes. And in praying in a disciplined or specific way. Or even following commandments and other biblical wisdom. What had once seemed limiting and contrived began to feel like a desert horizon: vast, spacious,and free. I couldn't believe it. The unquestioned assumptions about freedom under which i had ordered my world were my true inhibition to freedom.

---Strand 4---

These days i go back and forth between creating and tearing down structures, systems, and disciplines. I can drive myself a little crazy with it. At times wanting order, at times finding the order suffocating. But i feel more and more okay with the reality that who i am will require a textured balance of stability and freshness that i must initiate and instigate and work through. It's high maintenance. And that's just me. Sigh.

And actually if i am being honest with myself and not just mildly self-deprecating, i think this might be what Jesus wants from me, from all his followers. Bringing safety and stability, and yet having the eyes, the courage, and the wisdom to recognize that what used to bring that now brings only religiosity. Throw it out. Sewing a new patch on old fabric will tear them both. New wine in an old wineskin, spoils it. Really the constant tearing down is to get back to what is good and right and true. It is simple. And though we must house our ideals in something, those homes will always be imperfect. If one is serious about holding to the deepest, simplest, most important truth as sacred, then constant growth and remodeling is not an option. It doesn't change the truth, but our boxes for it can obscure the view and in that case they've got to go. I might be being vague, my love of abstraction can lend itself to such things. Also that i am talking about roughly five things at once right now makes my point murky, but hence the abstration.

---Strand 5---

Perhaps i am avoiding giving voice to another thought with my mental puttering. I am thinking, very seriously, about getting married. And all the trappings associated with it and to intiate it.

So, this morning i was adding some music to my I-collection and as i am wont to do, found myself dancing around the living room. But i was dancing in a way that felt at once new and old, right even. The movements were not common for me, certainly fresh. But they felt old in a very right and at-home sort of way. They felt connected to my gut, to the music. I found my arms and legs moving more freely and with larger motions than they are accustomed. And i am a dancer. As in, i dance... regularly, often, and at most every opportunity.

And suddenly i realized this strange delightful feeling was Sam's influence on me. My movements may not have looked African inspired, like his dancing is and does, and yet, knowing myself and trying to figure out where i had picked up these movements i realized it was unquestionably from him. And it felt good and free.

This gave light to my eyes. I don't have a fear of commitment nor a negative view of marriage but i am getting in touch with the loss of life and self involved in such a decision. Getting in touch with it and trying to make my own decision with my eyes clear and wide. Not with the soft-focus of "being in love." But i am realizing that even as i ponder the things that would change and be given up, which don't feel perse unmanageable, i am seeing all i have and will gain.

I am seeing how much i would lose of myself, of freedom and expansion of my mental and spiritual horizon, of newness and oldness without him... i am seeing the treasure i have found and need to nurture, even if that diverts my time, energy, and priorities from other things. I think they are lesser in compared to what i have here.

---Strand 6---

Freedom and loss seem to be connected. There are somethings you must lose in order to gain others. This is still a loss. A loss of certain freedoms. But in the case you exchange it for other freedom(s). So, the net result is still gain. Okay i don't mean to write of love and freedom so un-romantically as to make it virtually economic. Let me tray again.

I find that giving up freedoms that fall under the category "of doing whatever i want without restriction" for freedoms like "being uninhibited" and "deeply connected to my gut" are the kind that when the equation is balanced always lead to surplus booty, surplus life. It never seems it will be that way, but it is. There i go again. (Note: by booty i mean the pirate kind not the body-part kind).

So i guess this process and all others involving the loss and gaining of life seem to revolve around what type of life you ultimately want and what you are and are not willing to do to have that. To live in a dream, deeply connected to reality, laced with what you've lost and gained. A day-dream, a sweet-dream. A life only imagined. But a real possibility.

I fear that my writing, when i meander, when i roam and dream, abstract, and big-picture like this begins to make as much sense as Phaedrus toward the end of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I love and hate that book. .. and for that matter that genre of philosophizing and thinking and dreaming and speaking. If it must be done though, i think it should be done over some combination of late nights, dim lighting, port wine or hot tea, candles, good music, and blankets. And it is the middle of an East LA day for me, with the constant interruption of "Happy Birthday to You" blaring out of the ice cream trucks competing with the being-repaired-car's radio's sharing various styles of Mexican music, and the snockered neighbors fighting. The setting is all wrong, so, i'll stop.

---Strand 7---

How much is too much?

To spend on a ring, a wedding? What is communicating preciousness, beauty, commitment, welcoming, celebrating, sacred? What is simply bourgeois and wasteful?

How much time is enough to process? How much is too much? The problem is you can be completely under- prepared but at the same time you can never be completely prepared for something you've never done.

How much time can i spend thinking about dresses and rings, vows and music? Who am i that i get lost in such thoughts? And how much of this is utter silliness before a ring is even on a finger? How much of this is self-indulgent and disgusting?

But what would it cost to underestimate the importance of such things, to this jock-ish, hippie-ish, female, ten years from now, in resentment if i don't figure out what, materially and immaterially, i want?

---The Blanket Woven---

We walked into the kitchen with our friends, who are asking us hard questions and listening a lot, and being entirely unselfish with their time and lives with Sam and i as we think about this whole "marriage" thing. Fina pulls out two spoons and hands one to me. I know what is next and find myself flabbergasted at how wonderful the whole moment felt, how awesome it was for their generosity to seem casual to them, for me to seem like a friend with whom to share 10pm standing deserts, and not a burden. Two pints of Hagendas', two spoons, two females, two males. Half of those married, the other half considering marraige. One baby asleep in his car seat on the wood floor. Two asleep in their beds after one sitter put them to bed so that we could borrow their parents, now in the kitchen with us

Sam and i leave and look at the lights on Christmas Tree Lane he remarkedat the beauty, me at the magic. I was filled with gratitude that he likes to look at lights too. That he doesn't mind soaking in the season

The gut itself a symbol for an intangible, was wrapped in another. My gut felt tightly held by a blanket of spoken and silent thoughts, of processes, and being known, of dreams, of life and death, of fears and hope. Safe and content in itself, able to bear the know-able and un-know-able for now. My gut, warm, content, clear, free, centered. I'm happy and i may be making a very big and strange decision here, shortly.

---Mark 8:34b-36---

“Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?"

the absolute fragility of life

two days ago at work i recieved news that my co-worker's husband, not yet fifty, had died. he suffered a massive heart attack two weeks ago and never recovered. after a brief window of hope in the vital signs the day preceding, he closed his eyes and never reopened them.

to put it lightly, his wife is distraught.

and those of us who know her are left fumbling for words that aren't trite nor dismissive. it is awkward and unbelievably sad.

it has left me more grateful for what i have. more aware of the delicateness of all the good things that i generally feel entitled to... which really are gifts.

i feel a draw to revisit the reality of my own mortality and that of those around me. to with clear eyes recall how much i have to be thankful for, so when it is gone i won't wish i had realized how good i had it. i will have known and have savored. is this possible?

it is advent, time to make more room inside myself for the light of jesus. and yet, i am lingering on the darkness right now. i feel okay about that, and perhaps this is the very thing i need for this preparation. but i don't know. right now i think i will just need to be okay with the sadness and fear and painful dose of reality, with this reminder of fragility.