I Am a Work in Progress

The Send Off

2010-07-02T16:23:00.000-07:00

After several weeks of what felt like a nonstop flurry of activity our send off by Genevieve was a welcome refuge. We are heading, for any readers unaware, for Nigeria for my sister-in-law’s wedding, then to Uganda and South Africa for short-term mission visits that we hope will evolve into a longer term commitment.

On less than a handful of sleep we went through our last day of prep knowing we needed more time that we didn’t have. Our last hour at home was spent packing, repacking, arranging, moving, weighing our luggage. For one month we were allowed only one 50 pound bag each, a carry-on (13 pounds or less) and a personal item.

The non-negotiable list is painfully heavy and long:
• 2 battery powered 10”x10” fans
• 2 packs of eight each D batteries
• A/C and voltage adaptors
• a fully stocked medicine bag and first aid kit including several containers of bug spray (natural and DEET)
• the shower stuff, the hair stuff (full, not travel, bottles for last the month)
• Dried fruit, coffee, and gluten-free food bars for the higher maintenance one among us.
• Three travel guides
• For Nigeria, gifts:
     o a bottle of expensive wine, fit for a chief
     o a crystal picture frame
     o a full new outfit for a young woman, recent grad
     o cash money
• For Nigeria and Uganda, two pairs of dress shoes each, plus a suit for Sam and a nice dress for Am
• Long sleeve shirts for South Africa
• Teaching n’ preaching materials for Uganda.

And then there was, well, everything else that one must bring.

Once the stressful weighing and repackaging, the showing Tasha which plants to water and how often, the sweet nearly understandable “have a nice time” from two-year-old Dre, and a few last-minute bills paid, we were ready to go. Ready-to-go-ish anyway.

Genevieve picked us up ready to help. She’d packed Korean goodies and candy and granola bars in little packs for us complete with name written on the bag, sat in the back with me putting stamps on envelopes to a few birthday cards she would later mail for me, helped Sam navigate the five-p-m Los Angeles traffic.

As we pulled up to the airport she said that she would park and meet us in, that for international flights one should get a send off. So she did, she parked, walked with us to TSA, prayed for us, hugged us, and sent us off with a wave. We thought she left then. But as we had passed through the TSA check point and sat to put our shoes back on I looked up and saw her there watching, waiting, truly seeing us off. It took my breath away and I nearly had a good cry right there. Instead I decided you be brave, and looked up, smiled, waved again, and walked away with Sam in tow.

She was the very presence of Jesus with us that day, mimicking His tender care and concern for us. It was the loveliest thing I have experienced in my recent memory. Thanks Gen... here we come Nigeria.

Africa Trip Blogging

2010-07-01T16:16:00.000-07:00

So yes, Sam and I are headed to Africa: Nigeria, Uganda and South Africa and i will in fact blog some for my own sanity if not also for shared experience with any remaining readers. Please don't expect grammer or complete thoughts. My internet conenction will be limited... but i will share what i can. I hope it's fun to read! I'll post pictures when i can and try to give some observant details so you can feel the humidity with us.

While I am constantly day dreaming of a new blog for my soon-to-be thirty something self, this blog was originally started in 2005 as I left for Manila, the Phillipenes and then moved to LA. It has been with me to Mexico City and to Italy... it has sort of been a place to bring along my friends and family afar on these travels. And so it continues...

We leave today, July 1, 2010 for a month here is our rough itenerary:

Lagos, Nigeria (by way of London) - July 3 through July 15
Kampala, Uganda (by way of Cairo) - July 15 through July 20
South Africa (direct) - July 20 - July 28
LAX (by way of London) - July 30

XOXO,
Am

Distracted

2010-02-09T16:58:00.000-08:00

It has been a whirlwind of a few weeks and i am in a clouded head space.

I may go silent again for awhile, as i have taken on the task of administrating and updating a site for my cousin Marc who was recently diagnosed with advanced non-hogkins lymphoma. For any interested, the site is here: http://rallyformarc.blogspot.com/ Then, again... it might make my posting all the more prolific.

I flew up to San Francisco, unexpectedly, on Wednesday night. When i got the phone call on Wednesday morning about how advanced the cancer was i got right to work on Southwest.com getting the last flight out for the night.

Even under unfortunate circumstances, it was great to see Marc and family, great to see and smell and feel the Bay. I miss both on a regular basis. Plus i have some great local business to five-star-review on yelp both for their great food and service, and for their kindness towards my aunt who will be in SF helping Marc in his battle.

I was unable to visit anyone while i was up there, which is sad, but it wasn't exactly that kind of a trip. Chances are good that i will be up within the next month for some more of his treatments and perhaps at that time i can meet some of you bay-area-hooligans at a communal table for a night of breaking bread and catching up.

I have all of these work options popping up for me left and right, when all i want to do is rest and create and hang out with people i care about.

Sam and i have gotten our new room closer to being a functional rest/work space. It's our place for sleep and rest and prayer and... stuff. It's also my home office since i am doing more working from home "consulting" type stuff and also got a big flat workspace for art... which has been a storage space for all things that don't have a home yet. That ends tonight... so that there is more space to live and create!

I have been cooking more of late, and some pretty tasty stuff too. I might post my mad-scientist recipes up soon... since it has been the only outlet of creativity and this is, after all, my gallery space for such things.

I'll be getting back to returning phone calls and emails and such soon... meanwhile, thanks for sharing a few moments with me here.

Getting Schooled

2010-01-28T19:23:00.000-08:00

here is what i learned this week:

sometimes grown men are rude to their boss, the commander-in-chief

and sometimes grown women cry at work, about work

that sometimes you have to be grateful for your cousin's diagnoses of lymphoma, because at least now you know whats wrong

and sometimes you have to be okay with laughing and crying and just taking it all in because you have to be hopeful even when you are afraid of the still unknown outcome and believe that injecting poison into veins for six months while kinda awful, may just be a lifeline

(Marc, a proud uncle, a friend of India, a soccer coach, a cousin, a brother, a son, a friend, and most recently the friendly produce guy at the Truckee Safeway)

sometimes the impossible happens, because sometimes, even after the search efforts are concluding, you can survive fifteen days of being buried alive without food or water.

sometimes a traumatized seven year old boy might emerge ready to embrace life with joy and courage and sometimes i might say he is the most beautiful sight i have ever seen.

and sometimes even I, as a christian who finds find christian culture phraseology (WWJD, anyone?) highly annoying to say the least and indicative of shallow theology at worst, can be knocked off my feet by a well-thought out one. i saw a broken down car this week with a worn bumpersticker on the back that said simply: "Trust God Anyway."

After this week of hearing my youngest cousin has cancer, feeling sad for the destruction of Haiti, and for those that died, and especially for those that lived. After being frustrated at work myself and listening to our president as he is surely frustrated at work, and wondering if life can feel and be better than it is, after all... i needed the reminders from the bumper sticker and from the Haitians who have lived beyond when it was "possible," to live.

If you are the praying type, please pray for my cousin Marc, for Haiti, for our politicians, for me. And if you aren't the praying type, i'm counting on you for a full on care-bare stare, for example:

Be well friends.

I Get By With a Little Help from My Friends

2010-01-25T20:00:00.000-08:00

I asked for help.

It was Friday afternoon and 'twas feeling sad/angry/frustrated/worried about a multitude of things and one in particular.

I got some great responses from my facebookies. I thought I'd share (my apologies for the fuzz):

Thanks gang!

When i finished working that night at 8pm, I met up with Sam who had just gotten off work. We actually met at Chili's even though i think that place is super generic and kinda icky... we had a gift card and we're pretty broke and it meant i didn't have to cook which is yay. After a drunk "magician" tried to do a card trick for us while we both stared blankly at him (i finally was like "look dude, i don't know what to tell you, i got some real bad news today and i just... i'm not in the mood").

Ironically, as i tell Sam the days updates on the weeks news... he says "We really need to hear some good news." Right?

Thanks for sharing, friends.

2010 Dreaming on Such a Winters Day + Chaos Surfing

2010-01-21T12:23:00.000-08:00

It's crazy storming.

Angelino's are saying it hasn't been like this since el Nino. Has he come back as a teenager? Lighting and flooding and tornadoes oh my. I only wish I could indulge in the kind of introspection this weather is inviting me into. Alas.

The weather does match the tumult of the month(s) preceding and of the days news. Received some bad news about a dear family member today. I am trying to be hopeful. I am more and more convinced that life is chaotic and hard and stormy filled with sometimes glimpses of brightness and hope and possibility.

I was rambling to my chiropractor the other day about such things and she stopped me saying how much she liked the analogy of life that I shared. We agreed that yes, life is like the ocean. It is big and teeming with life and full of death and it is thrashing and calm, beautiful and foreboding.

Perhaps the people who enjoy it the most are those that accept it as it is and learn some way of working with it as it is--who learn to surf the waves or navigate the tides in a boat. We think life is happening to us, mean to us, good to us. But it just is what it is. And we can learn to surf the chaos or we can be constantly traumatized by the crashing waves, it's sorta our choice. That's the personal sovereignty we are granted by the Creator of it all, that's our "free will."

It has been a long January already and promises to be up until the last day. This is good in that I am certainly too busy to dwell on how hard it has been and other unresolved emotions but bad in that I am further prolonging doctors orders to relax, to rest.

I have a lot of decisions to make and plan to firm up my dreams and goals for 2010... hopefully realistic and reaching all at once. I'd given myself a pass on beginning these new or renewed ventures until we were settled in our new room, a long process, and i would actually be able to devote myself to my hopes. And that pass ends this weekend, it's time and i need to move forward.

Stay tuned for an accounting of 2010 aims... I am looking for accountability, dear e-world, even if it feels a little scary to share my fragile hopes. If you would be tough on me while helping me keep these hopes away from the too rough fingers of the world?

"Bring me all of your dreams, you dreamers,
Bring me all your heart melodies,
that I may wrap them in a blue cloud cloth,
Away from the too rough fingers of the world"

---The Dream Keeper by Langston Hughes

2009, check

2010-01-01T09:08:00.000-08:00

Last year Sam and i made goals rather than resolutions. We sat at the coffee shop where we also sat on our first date trying to figure each other out, and we shared goals and dreams for 2009. That was before so many difficult events of last year (not to mention yet unresolved events of 2008) when the recession was still kinda funny and my font of optimism had not yet run dry.

Well, those captured dreams and goals, it turns out that my computer ate them... at least that is all that i can assume because i just looked at the file, with correct name, and it's blank. It wasn't blank when we left the coffee house that January afternoon in early 2009, and i doubt Sam wiped the file. So it is safe to assume that my computer ate it.

Fortunately i have some internal sense of how I/we did. Truly 2009 was a year of getting-through; it was not a year of thriving. As a wise friend has reminded me however, i will never fully know the reasons nor the impact of all that i experience in 2008-2009. I will never know the important role they played in the unfolding of my life, so i will take stock in as honest and light-hearted way as i can and move into what will hopefully be a very different kind of year. Let's start with the negative and end on a positive-ish note:

Not Accomplished in 2009

Christmas postcard 2009 not finished +not mailed (this still might happen people, watch out)
no achievement of inner peace, nor even development of quieter more prayerful self
did not achieve target "emergency savings" as per relying on emergency savings for rent
nor massive reduction of debt
nor massive reduction of thighs
did not blog bi-weekly, did not reflect much at all
i didn't become less neurotic, not even a little bit
nor is there a new me, with less chronic pain or emotional turmoil
we did not find perfect jobs for either of us [though this was really a goal that came in February after the layoff]
i did not start composting
i did not back up my iTunes files
we did not get Sam back to Nigeria this year
we did not get Sam with his grandmother before she died
i did not stop buying coffee out
nor did i free myself from a newly acquired (late 2008 coping mechanism) Internet TV addiction... Law and Order, Dexter, Lie to Me, House, Bones... i go for the light stuff which is really helpful for my general outlook on life
no wedding album or prints
did not become a better long-distance friend
nor close-range friend, for that matter
did not keep my cell phone or keys in the designated pockets, per the desperate plea of Sam who can’t understand how a person can “lose” them so often.
did not manage to hurt no one
nor to love everyone [yes, lofty]
depression didn't magically nor methodically dissipate
did not seek joy very often [it seemed selfish]
did not dance enough

Accomplished in 2009

did get over myself and start using the pool at 24hour fitness, creepy dudes notwithstanding
did not contract a communicable disease in any of the 24hour fitness hot-tubs
we did achieve a near-draining of emergency savings per layoff [okay, now i'll knock off the sarcasm]
reasonable debt reduction, good even, when circumstances considered
we did not kill each other during the nearly unbearable months of May-August 2009
did not let jealousy over other people’s circumstances completely consume me, though it was a regular internal battle
celebrated our 1st anniversary, with a lot of help from our friends
witnessed several more of our good friends get married off Rupa, Mary&Jesus [present in spirit], Ryan&Teresa, Eric, Jen, Jeremy, Marina, Natalie, Bernice&Ricardo
only cried 3-4 times surrounding Bernice's wedding and shower
i did not drink a bottle of bleach when i was at the end of myself
i am no longer joking about drinking a bottle of bleach except to reference said sentiment
did not scream at my doctors when they were nonchalantly unhelpful
tithed even when it (really) hurt
exercised 2-5 times a week, every week
survived 5 months of a bathroom that can only be understood as "preparation for life in a third world country" and were grateful to have it
I started on the path toward acceptance of the physical limitations of an invisible disease
did not have a panic attack on the six and a half hour plane ride from Atlanta to Sacramento
did generally gain ground over the regular panic attacks in my life that were scaring the business out of me
kept my plants alive and mostly thriving
did not ram my car into some of the unbelievable @$$#*!&$ on the road
did not get rammed into when I was the unbelievable @$$#*!&$ on the road [though to be fair, I am rarely a mean driver intentionally]
finished a few novels
told a fair number of deep thoughts (just to annoy Natalie)
did celebrate Christmas in a way that felt truer to my core -- less "stuff" overall, more art, more focus on those who couldn't find room at any inn.

As 2010 is blooming this morning i am reflecting on the past year and trying to forgive the failures, celebrate the successes ( small and reaching though they feel), and move strongly in a fresh year... the year i turn thirty and can no longer call myself "a twenty-somthin' gal who longs for a place not-quite-yet, (sort of) content with life-as-it-is."

Pen & Paper

2009-10-26T13:15:00.000-07:00

Today i am cast in the role of midwife and frightened mother... unable to relax and release.

A blank slate in cyberspace and a keyboard are my equivalent of pen and paper.

I have been longing to create again--have a thousand art projects, meals, and words that are longing to live. They lie dormant in me, my stubborn unwillingness to give birth. I am unsure what the problem is.

For nine months i have had the pieces, painstakingly torn from magazines, newspapers, calendars, an announcement paper from church, and the large canvas to create a mixed-media river. It remains stagnant.

In my head, thousands of sentence fragments, half-imagined stories. Even unwritten emails and letters dance around reminding me of my long queue.

Last night i bought the ingredients to three great fall meals. I made only one, of Tuscan inspiration, and at that, halfheartedly.

A homemade Christmas is what i am dreaming of, gifts are being planned in the back-burner of my skull. Pricing screen and finding out if anyone on etsy has done anything as cool as what i have planned. And the answer is: almost... thus sapping my creative energies--first because of my lack of true originality and then because neurosis ensues about how lame it is that it had to be original, that it has to be a competition.

And my feet have remained arrhythmic for months of not dancing. I even missed the Los Angeles blues weekend... which is... tres sad. Every week i promise this will be the week i return and remind myself 'how to ride a bike'. But i work late, or get tired, or sick, or i loose heart. I do not dance.

Have i outgrown my creativity? My blog? Have i turned the corner towards 30 and forgotten how to be a rough draft, to put it out there for the process and not the outcome, to share my fragments and incomplete projects. For any out there who might be reading... i am creatively lost. And today i am making forays back in. Wish me luck... or energy.

Review: The Hour I First Believed

2009-09-15T17:48:00.000-07:00

The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In a single word: expansive.

It's been a long time since I've been so enthralled by a book. It required a lot of attention as each new plot turn also revealed a mirror-like piece of the national and/or Caelem's (the protagonist) past. It deepened as it lengthened. There were moments when the character development and growth were brilliant.

I love historical fiction and this was a rich gem of vast amounts of US history. It was a bit hard how much the fictional and nonfictional characters interrelated... I suppose it was necessary but also disconcerting.

Occasionally I felt like the chronology was ineffectual, like in several places the plot and experience of reading the novel would have been better served by arranging things in a bit more linear fashion. The choppy time line did work in some places, though.

I agree with other readers that it tied up a little too neatly in places. Actually, it all could've felt plausible if it weren't for the Velvet and Jesse conclusion, Jesse should not have been reintroduced. Without that caveat her final pages were fantastic.

The one part of the book that didn't work for me at all was the written-as-though a child chapter(s). This was in the first 100 (of 700+) pages--and I understand why this is around the time other reviews stopped reading. The material was needed, but given, for example, the fabulous Dr. Patel character I can't understand why this ineffective child-speak remained in instead of doing hypnosis with Dr. Patel or shorter memories being recalled or dreams (even day dreams) revealing pieces at a time. Or something, anything else.

Overall, I'm glad I read it, I enjoyed it and got a lot out of it personally. This was my first Wally Lamb novel.

View all my reviews >>

Public Figures Who Are Rocking My World

2009-05-04T01:04:00.000-07:00

... 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

2009-04-02T00:01:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-20T14:16:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-03-02T08:00:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-11T18:29:00.001-08:00

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

2009-01-26T22:39:00.001-08:00

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!

2009-01-22T22:01:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-09T12:20:00.001-08:00

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

2008-12-31T09:51:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-28T20:22:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-26T09:16:00.000-08:00

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

2008-02-04T14:26:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-04T23:40:00.000-08:00

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...

2007-12-15T13:18:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-07T17:23:00.000-08:00

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.

Hello, My Name is... Regina

2007-12-04T17:00:00.000-08:00

Last weekend i had my hair straightened. It took someone else nearly two grueling hours while making comments like "wow, you're hair is really curly" roughly every twenty minutes. But then, it was straight. Really straight. Fulfilling-my-childhood-fantasies straight.

Sam can never decide if he likes my hair one way or the other, or one dress over the other, and well, etc.. But it was definitely different for us both. I looked almost like a totally different person. And in the end, i think he did like it... but he always seems to prefer me in my more natural states.

From the mouths of others: older, more put together, more sophisticated, bonita, thinner, and hot. And then comments like: "it doesn't look like you" or "it doesn't fit you". Whatever that is supposed to mean.. because i am none of those adjectives normally? Because my personality doesn't exude such class and attractiveness? Rar! I certainly got a lot more public attention from men. Growl. Apparently curly hair isn't very attractive.

As every person who saw me went through their own process of shock and awe, i joked that i should have a whole different name and persona to go along with it. Everyone agreed. We tried on a lot of names: Jessica, Heather, etc. But they all felt, well, too blond and valley girl. And honestly, they fit a little bit. I looked blonder, and, whiter. When i was out with Sam i kept feeling like his white girlfriend. He would laugh when i said it and said "well, you are." And i responded "No, i am your girlfriend, who is white... but tonight i look like your white girlfriend. There's a difference."

One co-worker who made, to be honest, some uncomfortably positive comments about my hair decided that the best name was Regina. And altough his comments gave me the creepies, i like the name.

Regina, to me, is almost like a good retro/antique name. It sort of says classy and also unique (perhaps colorful) woman who has a voice with some depth to it. So, Regina it is. It's different than my normal name; it's vague and uncommon enough name to be multi-purpose or multi-woman.; and in this vagueness it provides a platform for the persona while expressing the bluesy soul and Italian heritage of the woman beneath the blonde veneer.

But the curly hair is back now, and so Regina will be locked back in her cage of kink until someone has the patience and strength for a two hour work-out session with my hair.

three glorious hours

2007-11-04T18:01:00.000-08:00

i may not be spending them the most effectively, but that entirely misses the point. i have three glorious hours alone and in the midst of them i find that i miss myself.

these days, i am so behind in catching up with people as near as roommates and as far as friends living in other countries--backlogged on email and phone calls and letters longing to leave the familiar territory of my desk for the adventure of travel through boxes and bags to the locations stated so clearly on their exterior. but of all the people and things i am behind with, i am mostly backlogged in my intrapersonal life. my time in quiet, in creativity, in prayer.

my life, full of so much good stuff, i think is just that: full of a little too much good stuff. and i am unceasingly lacking at prioritization and focus. i feel like i constantly have to revision, refocus, reset. perhaps it has been my inability to recognize this and make it a regular habit that is the problem. not the flaw itself, but the poor management of the weakness. i suppose i could, for example, daily return to my priorities and remind myself and weekly be self-evaluative--rather than wander aimlessly... only to once-every-couple-of-weeks realize how out of sorts i feel... how lost i am at any given moment, in the plethora of good options i have.

and so here i sit with my three glorious hours, that i forced myself to take. despite all the still undone to-do's, unsent emails, unwritten letters, unmade phone calls. to sit and reflect, write if i want, read if i want... but think absolutely. and as i sit in them i am oh so clear: what i really need is more. i'm such a greedy bastard. :) i want more of me.

hips.

2007-10-16T21:09:00.000-07:00

her hips were not small, in fact, they were quite large. she recognized this as an asset. and they were.

snug jeans hugged their large turns and an appropriately clingy top hit below the waist but above the round of her backside, calling more attention to them both. of all audacity, she tied a half-shirt under her bust, in clear intentional defiance of "dressing for your type" articles in women's magazines. this article of clothing was her punctuation on the sentence of: i love my hips!

as i watched her turn and move with her dance partners, her hips were mesmerizing and her confidence and movement inspired me not only to appreciate hers, but my own, too often in pain, hips.

large, feminine, woman hips.

inspired by unknown dancer at lindygroove, about a year ago, whose spins and turns are still haunting my memory

Inheritance

2007-10-14T09:57:00.000-07:00

At work we are going through all these boxes and file drawers as well as soft copies of folders and files… and it’s all a mess. Just a mess. As the person who is handling the management of our database, I have become a sort-of interim manager of all data and (non-existent) data systems around the office. Remove the "base," and i am more accurately the data manager.

And, it’s in bad shape.

And as my boss and I were working out some details for part of our re-organization effort, I said to her mostly for my own benefit, in the midst of my overwhelmed-ness: “It’s going to feel differently next week. We’ll feel so productive and, and… it will all seem so much less intense in retrospect.” My attempts at consoling myself were mostly futile. We had a lot of work ahead of us.

But then she said “Yeah, we didn’t make this mess, but we inherited it, and we’re going to make it better.” For whatever reason, her saying this sort of spun me off into my head, feeling like she had perfectly concluded many different strands of unfinished thought over the last few weeks. And I guess, for whatever reason, it made me feel less stressed about the mess we were dealing with. I hadn’t done anything wrong.

In a way, it helped that I wasn’t trying to feverishly make better my own short comings, I was going to smooth over the past wrongs, or weaknesses, or whatever the hash or more compassionate reality is about the state in which my predecessors had left the department.

As I thought about the awful file cabinets, the boxes of unmarked papers and folders, containing an awful assortment of highly important and superfluous documents which needed to be understood, sorted, filed, kept track of. Ug. Inherited mess.

I thought about the world, the US, Los Angeles, and how upsetting the state of each of those is. Inherited problems, damage and destruction.

I thought about the way that people, my friends, my neighbors, people I read about in the newspaper, me, my family with their families before them, has inherited genes, patterns, coping mechanisms, and sin from each other. Each generation usually chooses either between denial and therefore defacto inheritance or blame of the previous generation, therefore also defacto inheritance.

But who chooses to wade through the mess? To call the effed-up mess, just that (the important first step where people usually stop)... but then to do the tedious work of sorting through the boxes of chaotic papers and files of varying degrees of importance, and then to sit with all of it, the awful mess of chaos and pain, and be still. And of handing the next generation a little bit better file cabinet, with some structure and sense. So that they can read through the files and make some sense of themselves, those that came before them, and what to do next. (And this imagery, makes me sigh and think of the conclusion of my friend H.H.'s story in Journey to the East).

Is it possible to leave the world, or our small corner of it, or even our own emotional and spiritual space a little more digestible for the next generation than what we received?

I guess I am living in hope that we can.

And on the superficial level of the data and information management at my workplace, I am acting on that hope.

I’ll let you know.

WYSIWYG

2007-10-03T17:36:00.000-07:00

You know a woman is busy when her most effective form of self-therapy (blogging: ramble-y writing) has not taken place in nearly a month. And to move out of detached, generalized, third-person that woman is me.

I have been swimming in the world of development, databases, and (contrastingly but also usual) life in the ghetto. As i have been getting oriented to my new baby Raiser's Edge, i have been running into this term again and again: WYSIWYG.

It is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get, and i am becoming more and more convinced that it can only be confined to the world of IT and IM. Granted, i am grateful for it within that world, a world which even within the confines and boundaries of it's languages seems to also somehow be boundless in possibility and creativity.

The very fact, for example that I enjoy information management is not WYSIWYG. My co-workers remark at how i must be good at math, how detail-oriented i am, etc. And i can't help but think: if only my friends could hear you now.

Then there is who i was. Way back when. Last weekend, I went to my ten year high school reunion *gasp.* And it was a strange experience, good sort-of, and somehow, glad i went. Sam chalked it up to closure. I think he is right. My brother asked me if i was having fun "i don't know?!" i responded, "you?" He thinks and says "Yeah, i don't know either, but my cheeks hurt from smiling." That is the most succinct and descriptive explanation of the entire experience. Who is it that those people think i am? Who is it that i think they are... are they locked in some mental image of them that i have had since 6th grade?

Sam and I continue to get to know each other more deeply. And learning the stuff that goes beneath the surface, as we are looking through the baggage, the garbage, the trophies, the families (we are going to see his family in North Carolina on the last week of October). One must discover these things if one is going decide to pair up permanently. Intuition aside, so little can be known on the surface. And "til death do you part" is a long and sacred time. So if we are not WYZIWG, what are we?

I feel like depending on who i am with, only pieces of me are visible at any given time. I think that is true for all of us. How much can we know? How much do we need to know?

And, on that overly existential vain, who am i?

What you see is not what you get.

The New, the Old, and the Transition

2007-09-11T14:27:00.000-07:00

I am taking a ten minute break from work. I now have two of them, a lunch break, a sick day a month, some vacation time, a shorter commute, and a higher salary. Not bad.

Yesterday i started working for the world's largest humanitarian aid organization as their database manager. The database is in poor repair, which means that much work is ahead of me--but each project will have clearish start and finish dates, even if some of those will be longish. I think their finiteness will be soothing additions to my life. Work, soothing? Perhaps, the final statement of my insanity. But i am okay with that.

Life is busy and full of less clear emotional and spiritual work. Full of relationships, full of ministry, full of transitioning. The ministry, relationships, and transition all feel so much more nebulous and hard to define. Beginnings and endings and changes are sort of fuzzy, they just sort of are. Perhaps it is because rather than being tasks, they are sort of intangible yet somehow organic organisms. They grow, they change, and like all mystical processes the actual points of differentiation are elusive to the human eye. But the human heart can sense a change, however subtle, and must then wrestle with the eyes and the mind which for lack of hard evidence they cannot believe.

I tried to watch TV last night to help me decompress. But the show i was hoping would be on, wasn't. And so i watched what was in it's stead... whatever that Charlie Sheen one is called. It is awful. I mean, really awful. You feel like your brain is actually shrinking, "atrophying," as Ali says for the poor writing and over obvious physical comedy. So i turned to our entertainment collection, watching Traffic instead, because apparently that is just what i needed to "decompress." Right.

My body feels fuller than normal, partly from all the tacos and pasta that filled my belly this summer and partly from the lack of exercises that my "hip injury" requires. Self-image has been in flux, that is, my own personal thoughts about myself and in particular the excess junk-in-the-truck. I hate these sort of struggles and feel like i am too intelligent and too emotional/spiritually mature to struggle with something so material. However, i do. And i should just stop pretending to be "over it."

But Sam thinks i am pretty when i am dressed in my grungiest clothes and have mascara smudged under my eyes. And he mentions this as, in grungies, we dance in the kitchen after a i have thrown together an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink dinner. As per his instruction I learn to dance a little to high-life-type music a little like an African, which means with character. A little. Bit by bit. I think we will keep Sammy. We like him.

And by we, i mean me.

Two Decades + Seven = Birthday

2007-09-05T09:45:00.000-07:00

"She takes just like a woman, yes, she does... she makes love just like a woman, yes, she does... and she aches just like a woman. But she breaks just like a little girl." --B. Dylan

Argh. It is frustrating for me that no matter how hard i try, at some point on my birthday... some sort of nebulous pain creeps up. I fight it and fight it, but it ultimately gives it more power. Maybe better to just not pretend that it is going to feel okay. Anyway. So, yesterday was a tad hard.

But it has been a good couple of days preceding, thinking about all that i am grateful for. And also just getting notes and thoughts, and thoughtful gifts from friends and family. Thanks to you all for your phone calls, emails, and notes in the mail.

As i find birthday's largely uncomfortable... i try to think about what it could or should mean to complete another year of life. A time to stop and reflect on the year. The good, the bad, the mysterious. It is a time to be grateful, and really see and acknowledge and focus on the good things i have in my life. Below is the by-product of said reflection.

And so, here is this year's list of the 27 things (for 27 years) i am grateful for--and it is by no means exhaustive nor in an exclusive order:

1:sam.awosanya 2:dancing! 3:plants 4:mercy 5:pozole 6:smarmy urban youth. 7:eSpanglish 8:my roommates 9:los angeles 10:people who get it 11:the smell of rain on concrete 12:the psalms 13:the ocean blue 14:Shalom: the concept, the dream 15:adults who try (difficult) new things 16:my parents' generosity... italy. 17:poetry 18:dark chocolate (especially with port) 19:the delight of children 20:forgiveness 21:mi equipo: chris,mags, ali, jenny, ryan, y jer. y nuestros amigos de LH: andrew, teresa, y lynnski. (and this was on the list before they all pitched in and bought me a new Ipod since one of our friendly local junkies stole my old one) 22:a job! 23: life (itself). 24:blues music 25:treasure 26:[all the things too deep for words] 27:the unchanging goodness of God.

I'm alive. Yup.

At a small, silly party i threw myself with the help of Lindygroove, i put all these things on the table and asked people to join me in celebrating the good things in life. Celebrate life, your life and being alive, with me by leaving a comment about the things that make life so wonderful for you.... and cheers! to that.

Previous birthday thoughts, gratitude, and neurosis... please see below. I'm full of that stuff. Rar.

Previous birthday rambles:

2006: Life. Death. Birth(day). (26)
2005: Inevitable First of the Lasts (25)

my prayers: unorthodox but honest

2007-09-01T12:36:00.000-07:00

how i usually like to pray is that i spend time alone, quiet, silent. i get centered, sometimes i speak words into the silence, to god. sometimes i just sit and let the wordless thoughts tumble out of my head, my heart. i am fresher, more ready to look beyond myself, more able to engage with the reality of god all around me, to see him where i least expect it.

but lately that has not been... possible. because it has been too hot. because my mind, my body has not let me settle down. because i don't really know where i am. because it seems like everyone around is in need of a little help right at the time i want to pray. so what is prayer, anyway?

are these excuses?
possible... probable.
yet, i feel like it is equally probable that god is wanting to invite me into new kinds of prayer.

prayers, helpfulness for the "widow" who needs help moving from here to there for cheaper renta. prayers for mercy, clarity for the person who left the dead dog offering in our front yard. prayers of joy as my feet move on the ground, finding their home and their space in the rhythm and invitations of dance partners. prayers of gratitude for joy. prayers for growth for the child who is too old to not speak yet,who hits me in the head in anger. words of "gentle" to him since that maybe all he understands. prayers for him as he sees his father in handcuffs, waving from behind his back, full of sorrow. prayers for his father who will spend sixteen months in the pokey. prayers for transformation as i play "papa caliente" with some youth in their busy street front yard. may they have better lives than i can even fathom for them.

prayers that in whatever way i pray, that i might see god and recognize him in his subtle forms all around me. that i might grow to understand him more, even if in unorthodox ways. prayers that with my footstep-prayers, my handshake-prayers, my abrazo-prayers, my helpme-prayerss, my helpthem-prayers, my i'm sorry-prayers, and my thankyou-prayers that i might full of awe, full of trembling before the reality of the one who i pray to, work out my healing, my way home.

Troubling Mysteries

2007-08-23T14:33:00.001-07:00

Why are there so many churches in my neighborhood, while there is so little shalom?

Why did it take knowing my neighborhood not-yet and barely teenage youth for a full year to see them do anything remotely like a child? ...to run and play and dig sand crabs out of the earth, the waves thwarting their cause at every turn?

Why do some people's mistakes go unnoticed, unpunished, leaving them with an unblemished record? ...while others can't seem to prove they are a human with skin under the blemishes always noticed?

Before i forget... Italia

2007-08-22T14:53:00.000-07:00

Oh yes, so in between being here and there (Los Angeles and Mexico, respectively), I took a trip to Italy with my family. Random or what? This is the recounting of it lest i say nothing and capture nothing of such a trip, which certainly made me want to know more of history, more of the world, and more words to give voice to the sights and insights...

Though I was missing Sam terribly and really couldn't wait to see him, nor my tagged-up Los Angeles neighborhood and it's inhabitants, my friends, I enjoyed my time under the Tuscan sun and have a few reflective thought-type-things. Yes, i only said "thought-type-things" to reduce the banality and formality of the type of sentence that is somehow the umbrella for the thoughts which it precedes. And i think that follow-up sentence further demonstrates how my (sometimes) distaste of usual may be the cause of my inability to be succinct. Moving on... thoughts on Italy follow in the next four posts.

It had been a dream of me clan for some time. Our desire to marinate in our family history, combined with the reality that my brother and i were both becoming of the age where a nuclear family trip of four would become less and less possible as we are coming upon that time of our lives where we might have families of our own. Add the last straw, which made this summer the one for the trek to Italy: presence of adequate free filer miles to shuttle my brother and I over the great sea that our ancestors probably traveled by boat in the 1920's. How's that for a couple of long sentences? I should get a prize.

Tuscano

2007-08-22T14:52:00.000-07:00

Tuscany was the first and deepest part of the journey, as we stayed for a whole week in a "rustic farmhouse" in the middle of the region. During the days we either did nothing, except take three hour long meals that we cooked using a few items picked up that day from a local market and the farmhouses' organic garden or that were consumed at a restaurant with multiple courses, desert, cappuccinos, and waiters named Franco and Francesco. We visited ancient towns and cities built by the Etruscans and rebuilt by others. Cities so old and yet magnificent, so enchanting that they literally take your breath away at first and second sight.

Really everywhere you looked, a gasp emerged from your throat, with or without your permission. On my second night in the middle of somewhere, after a long dinner, I sat on the thousand year old stone porch where for centuries families must have sat pondering the harvest, birth, death, war, the newest form of government, and the value of various vinters. I sat enjoying the view and saw the way even the uber-calculated olive groves, vineyards, Italian cypress trees and thousand year old (and plus) farmhouses seemed to belong as naturally to the landscape as the very curves of the hills themselves.

Between the daily three-hour siesta, the closure of everything sacred and secular on Sundays, the landscape that was never overpopulated, that always blended and inspired, I realized that like the desert, the uniqueness of that place was "the lack of too much." The food, the olive oil, the wine, the people , the landscapes of Tuscany are nothing short of indescribable--except to say that (though travel to all of Europe may inspire such thoughts from an American) to see Tuscany is wonder if perhaps Middle Earth is not fiction.

Sicilia

2007-08-22T14:51:00.000-07:00

In Sicily there are doors that open within doors.

Sicily is the motherland of my forefathers. All over Italy, when my parents mentioned our last name, Italians would hold up their fingers like a mime's gun and say in the non-Americanized form "Aye-ah-lo." Yes, the reputation of our shady immigrant ancestors in the states had left an impression. And we were ready to learn more about the country from which these gun bearing relatives emerged with a three day exploration of the city where they were educated: Palermo. The first day was sort of a comedy of errors. Only we weren't laughing. At least not until our final error.

It had been a rough day and none of us liked each other or Italy or anything at all and a couple of us had bruised egos. We were cranky, hungry, annoyed, hot (really hot!). But we had it out, realized what was going on for each of us, shot some coffee, and ate food. Suddenly the world was worth being in once again. As we walked back to our hotel, the long way, we ran into a small parade of pink-clad musicians. (Interesting fact about countries outside of America: men wear pink and it looks nice on them, masculine even). Yes, random. So, we did what anyone would do.

We followed them for a mile. We followed them into an outdoor seafood market, scary traffic, and down immigrant populated side streets where women lowered down baskets out of fifth story windows with money offerings, which the musicans gratefully took. Pretending to be anthropologists, we followed them, asking each other questions and trying to understand the culture of this strange people of ours. We ran into the parade later in the day. They were still marching, still playing but with even more people. We followed them some more.

And then my brother poignantly said "after a day of defeat, this feels like our victory parade." So we enjoyed, clapped along, and hit the reset button on our trip. Turns out it was the holiday of a Saint, the Saint who oversees the seas (tee hee) because Sicilians are a sea-locked and loving people. That fact led them to be captured by so many nations throughout the years that the culture is a real mix of southern Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. Who knew? I didn't.

Sicilians are generally a bit shorter, darker, and with more distinct and significant noses. The women in art and life are thin, rarely obese, but with surprisingly thick legs and ankles. And for many reasons these attractive and desired women with thin bodies and thick legs made me feel not so abnormal with my thick legs... that have been at times slightly less thick, but never, never thin and rarely comfortable in jeans. I wonder if part of the gift of the trip was to see that i looked like these women, if not in skin tone then in body shape. And they are beautiful, these thick-legged Sicilian sisters. So, here's to thick legs and Renaissance art! And also to the last all-natural granita stand sold by the three-toothed man in front of the Massimo theatre, who had been selling it for over 50 years!

Roma

2007-08-22T14:50:00.000-07:00

Rome is large and exciting and hot and impossible to explore in a short amount of time. It is also the place (not the third world, eat your heart out stereotypes) that my purse was picked and my credit cards used for sports equipment and international phone calls. So, the breadth of the trip was abbreviated for my hours on the phone trying to gain control of my finances and identity which were suddenly in the hands of someone else. So cunning were they that on the crowded bus with all my family standing or sitting nearby they managed to unzip and extract my wallet made of old juice boxes and escape without so much as a thought about the relative safety of my few precious remaining Euros.

Anyway, Rome was a good lesson in humility at the worlds and empires and genius and evil that has come before--by 100 AD the empire had temperature controlled floors in the palace near the Coliseum where as many as one million people were killed over a 400 year period for sport! The empire, the Coliseum, the remains of Minervan temples, the Vatican, Romulus and Remus all converged to make quite an impression on me. Our last night in the country was topped off with an accidental dinner with a British couple and their son in Italy on short "holiday" as Brits are wont to take. They introduced themselves after squeezing in between the too packed tables by saying "we aren't little people, but we're happy." Hello fun! Their company was delightful and rich--hilarious and fun.

We all drank a little too much wine, ate a little too much of everything, and smiled more than seemed possible under the circumstances of my hijacked financial life. We decided to be friends forever and exchanged emails and promises to stay with each other should we ever find ourselves in each others countries. The she-Brit also promised to give W. a piece of her mind when she comes to visit.

Italia... final review

2007-08-22T14:49:00.000-07:00

Italy, in all, boasts food that is fantastic and never ever rushed. Like Mexico you would never be presented with a check until you asked for it and it was expected that you would take at least an hour for your meal. And there really isn't any such thing as fast food in Italy. Even the side-of-the road stops and airport offered a plate and mug to eat on. Paper products, packaging, and food. One of those things doesn't belong. Olive oil, wine, tomatoes, and garlic flow freely at all times and are always followed with espresso or gelato.

The men are as to be expected, almost to a fault. They don't even realize they are so cliche, flirtatious in a charming way, and forever "Ciao Bella-ing" you as you walk by (thick legs and all). I was charmed, but so glad i had a boyfriend, because i like him so very much, but also because it is an easy out for a foreign woman and an appropriate enough reason to ignore them.

Finally, i have learned once and for all that it is not the DMV which is "hell on earth" but airports. The rides there and back each had their own encounters with AHB (Appalling Human Behavior), not from the employees but of the (very American) patrons. Travel in other countries makes me want to bow out of the reality of my citizenship while somehow also making me grateful for all that my share in the empire affords me. I'll spare you the details of said AHB, but am grateful for this newly discovered label for the behaviour which can only be described thus.

Other than the location and it's delights, other highlights included being for two weeks immersed in my brothers strange vernacular, my dad's constant referencing of National Lampoons vacations with "okay, let's at least get out of the car since we are at Wallyworld," and my mom's lemon-dressing which i never thought needed improvement but was indeed better with home-grown and pressed olive oil. Everybody tried something new which was unexpected and cool: my dad dared to fall in love with reading, my mom with pasta, my brother with a place other than Northern California. I tried to stop telling deep thoughts, but unlike the others' in their successes, i failed! Mwa-ah-ah.

Italy, beautiful, inspiring, and far far away.
Thanks to me fambly.

Memory

2007-07-31T17:05:00.000-07:00

When I think of you I will think of last bowls of pozole, a last plate of mole enchiladas and a sip of Adriana’s salsa beer, the awesome cappuccinos but the horrible coffee, and how I am in love with fresh warm tortillas, sprinkled with salt and rolled-up as though an empty taquito to gnaw on.

When I think of you I will remember the giant bandera in the Zolcolo full of wind and glory, and how I wanted to buy one of the artisanal dresses and every piece of jewelry and pottery at the mercado.

When I think of you I will think of the fierce rains that lasted for an hour or so everyday, outside the city, how it produced the “romantic evenings” without illegal electricity in which to chat with Shabrae, and also how their fuerza kept me from the pirimides, Chapeltepec’s castle, and a sane last few days.

When I think of you I will think of you I will remember the naked Vercruzeans having their manifestaciones, and the great bookstores with good cafes but inadequate children’s dictionaries which i was really hoping for.

When I think of you I will think of the male harassment in the streets, the women begging for money. I will remember the marriage proposals and inquiries into courtship, the awful way "guera" sounded when it was coming from their mouths, how repulsive a kiss or sex sounded when you made those noises that felt like terrorism. I will remember feeling at once sad for them and angry.

When I think of you I will remember being almost content, almost comfortable, almost, finally, in a good rhythm.

When i think of you I will remember throwing my toilet paper away in the trash can and the prolonged moment of confusion about how to handle toilet paper while in the baño on the plane ride home.

When I think of you, i will remember not your city streets, but your almost-urban dirt roads; your “buen viaje” goodbyes, your “¿cuando regresas?” questions. I will think of homemade pan given as a gift for tutoring. It was not the cinco pesos variety with water-dressed-in-brown (Nescafe) coffee near my school in Colonia Roma. I will not only think of the warm kisses on cheeks but how i almost cried when i heard the way one of the young children told his sister to give me a hug because I squeeze so tight.

I hope our reunion isn’t far in the future... Goodbye Mexico.

Think of Me, Think of Me Fondly (...she wanted to say)

2007-07-31T17:03:00.000-07:00

That morning, she asked me how I would remember her. I thought for a moment, relalized I was feeling akward with any multitude of responses i could have given, and resented the options the question seemed to present.

So, what I said was: "I will remember your humor, I will remember how you talk so fast and how I had to ask you ‘mande’ about every five seconds. Yes, I will remember that you are funny. "

And that was true, but I, also, thought: I will remember how you needed a friend. I will remember our sushi and movies date, that was cheap. And how you made fun of my Spanish on a hard night. I will remember how you threw gum at someone and in my shock and lack of adequate words, I said very little except that i couldn't believe it.

When I left that afternoon, running out the door to the taxi you had called for me, the bags you had schleped and loaded without my asking, my stomache full from the chorizo and eggs breakfast you insisted I eat with you, i had the sudden reazlization of what you had said to me the night before. You know, when you were helping me practice trash talking over dinner and you jabbed my pronunciation, again, but to my fallen face spoke some truth though (in Spanish, as was all our conversation)…"no, actually you speak well, the gringos in Mazatlan can’t speak at all, and anyway you quit your job and left your friends and came down here to learn, that is brave, that is intelligent."

And so, I told you, just before i hopped into the taxi, that upon further reflection: I would remember that you are muy, muy amable and that... that amiga, is the truth (hidden though it is under your humor).

La Guerita's ABCs of Mexican Spanish

2007-07-31T17:00:00.000-07:00

This post is the playful synthesis of my time in Mexico. If i had to choose one important word for each letter of the alphabet, to share... they would be these. Followed by three more, which i won't explain, and after this, a synopsis of the main word. I hope you enjoy the abstract of my experience.

A - azulrey (and also amable <as in muy>, aguas and animarse ). Azulrey is the name of the particular shade of Mexican blue with which I was obsessed while in Mexico. The name means blue king or King of blues. Yup, exacto.

B - basilica (and also bolsa, besos and Benito Juarez). The basilica, in the far north of the city, is an area dedicated to the worship of Nuestra Senora of Guadalupe—or la virgin (Maria). Pilgrims come from near and far to adore, pray, and see the image of Maria. As legend has it Juan Diego was an indio who had an encounter with her, who appeared darker and more like his people than the espanoles had presented, more than once, the second time leaving her image behind (apparition) on the his cloak. The result is not just well-known legend but the mass conversion of indios to Catholicism. The villa and basilica is a huge area that encompasses two cathedrals, a gigantic plaza, the old church of Juan Diego, the basilica itself up on top of the hill, and gardens leading up. Women, babies in tow, walk on their knees from the time they enter the gates until they catch a glimpse of the image. They sit under her cloak and weep for twenty minutes. At the very least, we Christians who are troubled by the worship of Mary must get down on our knees with them (not in veneration of Mary, but differently, in a posture of humility and solidarity) and start the dialogue from there.

C - conjugacion (and for Cuatemoc, Cardenas <as in Lazaro>, and Calderas <as in Presidente>). For those who don’t speak Spanish, French, Italian, or Portuguese… the conjugacion of these languages is crucial. I think I spent roughly half of my time trying to conjugate verbs into the correct tense (roughly 8 options) and person (5 options) format (a total of 40 options per verb not including the non-simple tenses). Lots to remember, and there seems to be a verb for everything… including “to salt and pepper” which is salpimintar. Aye!

CH - chilango/a (and also for chanclas, chavo/a and Chapultapec). Depending on what region of Mexico you live in the meaning changes. In the city, a chilango is a person who lives in DF but immigrated to the city from an outlying area (of which there are many, thanks to the global economy and etc). A DFeño is a person born and raised in the city. Norteño's call anyone from DF a chilango, and they don't like 'em. Ah, regional differences.

D - democracia (and dar cuenta, dar luz, y desnudo). Mexico is a democracy. Sorta. Some people call it narcodemocracia. A drug democracy. A democracy until it affects the drug trade. Or the uber wealthy of DF... which is pretty much the same thing. The church, the government, the police... all involved. Makes democracy difficult. And yet, isn't it always?

E - este (and for este, este and los esados unidos <E.U.>). English speakers (or at lease those from los estados unidos) say “um.” Mexicans say “este… este… este…” By the time I was comfortable trying to joke, I would do my impression of a Mexican thinking (“este… este… este…”) with every Mexican friend I had confidence (trust) with—and fortunately they laughed. Besides functioning like “um,” it is also a conjugated form of the verb estar, and a way to say this and that... you know, depending on the context.

F - familia (and for futbol, fuerte and Frida Kahlo). It was really pretty tough to choose between futbol and familia… yet, I did it. Good for me! Familia is the basic unit of measurment of civic society in Mexico. Familia comes first. Familias all live together until (but not always then) the children marry off. For familia men cross the border, for familia they don’t. Some men have multiple familias.

G - ¡guau! (and for ¡guacala!, ganar and guero/a). There are a few English (I think?!) expressions of punctuated feelings that are very prevalent in Spanish: oops, ouch, and wow. But wow, is spelled “guau” and it is used a-lot to display both positive and negative surprise. Very useful word. Very clever, very fun.

H - ¡hijole! (and for hielo, hecho and hola). Along with este, my impression of a Mexican thinking, comes with ¡hijole! “este… este… este… hijole.” A little like darn, or shoot… One guy I know responded first to every question I asked him with “hijole” as though thinking itself almost hurt, like the thinking itself was one big “…shoot!” Like the meeting of frijole and hijo, it is very multipurpose, good to know for any Mexican travels.

I – ito/a (and for -ismo/a, igualmente and indios). This is not a word, it is a suffix that when added to a word makes it either more small or more affectionate. For example the enormous bandera (flag) at the Zocolo made all other flags look like “banderitas.” Or turning Lupe into “Lupita” communicates that she is young and/or that you feel very affectionate in a familial way. And there is a Lupita in Chimalhuacan about whom i feel that familial affection... sigh!

J - jitomate (and for jamon, jabon and jamas). Unfortunately tomato does not translate directly as tomate (that is a green tomato), the word for the red tomato found in salsa, ketchup, and marinara sauce is called jitomate. And along with cebollas and ajo, the trio make up the flavor of nearly every home-cooked Mexican meal—add tortillas and ¡buen provecho!

K - kilo (and for kilo, kilo and kilo). How ‘bout that metric system. You know, they weren’t kidding in jr. high science when they said it might come in handy. Whenever my conversations turned to cantidad (quantity) of distance, weight, height or depth—well, I just communicated that I didn’t know the metric system, which always was met with looks that made me think I might be the stupidest person in all of Mexico. In particular it is very common in the city for conversation to turn to weight, wherein someone will mention their attempts to bajar kilos (to lower pounds). There really aren't any other words that start with k. Okay a couple, but really, really few.

L - leche (and for lavar, leventarse and lucha libre) I guess I hadn’t really grasped that leche was such a big part of the Mexican diet. I’m not sure how I missed this because it is big. In fact, the only place one can get something obscene like soy milk (can’t buy it in any store to take home but it) is select metro Starbucks locations. Queso of varying regional styles, crema, yougurt, helado, nieves, paletas, and then just plenty of leche in café , chocolate, and atole. Also, milk is sold in non-refridgerated cartons that look like the soy containers which was a little hard to get used to. Moo.

LL - lluvia (and for llegar, llevar, and llaves). It rains a lot: lluvia. A lot, a lot. In fact, the weather was nothing like what i expected. Sitting in the valley, a former lake bed (hence the many sink holes and deteriorating walls and foundations due to salt) of a grip of mountains, D.F. experiences all four seasons every day. Who needs the year broken into quarters, when it's all there every day: a heavy rain, a light sunny breeze, an autumnal sunset, and an hour of sun scorch.

M - ¿mande? (and also mira, manifistación, and Moctezuma). Mexicans are known all over the Spanish speaking world for their use of mande in vez de que to communicate the question "what" when you didn't hear what someone said. Other Spanish speakers chide it, think it is funny... because it essentially implies "what did/would you order me?" One word... a whole phrase of implication. I found it polite... and an interesting window into the culture. Mexicans would always be delighted when they heard a guera speaking that way, with mande, "just like a Mexican" they would tell me.

N - “¡no me toques!” (and also nescafé, nalgas <but use bompies instead>and novio/a). Sure, no is a great cross-over word in many languages. But since it is so obvious, i thought i would share it as the preface to the most important phrase to learn before riding the metro. ¡No me toques! means... don't touch me! Use liberally, upon being groped.

N - niños heroes (and also señor/a, arañes, and DFeño). Only about five words start with an ñ, most easily pronounced n-yay. But the niños heroes were boy soldiers who heroically tried everything they could to protect Chapultapec castle. Immortalized in statue form in el bosque de Chapultapec (a great destination for any DF tourists, but don't taste the cotton candy, trust me!). They also have a metro stop named after them... ah, the fame!

O - oye (and also ¡Orale!, olivdar and occidente). The perfect way to get attention between friends, similar to "hey," but a derivative of oír, which means to hear.

P - pozole (and also padre <as in padrisimo>, por and para). Pozole hardly needs any explination. It is awesome. Hominey, chicken (or pork), brothy goodness, and lettuce/raddish/onion add-ins... aguacate and tostadas if you are lucky. My first bite of this was with Pri, roughly 5 years ago. I had MANY bites of it in Mexico city, the best saved for last with a local friend who took me to the place whose pozole, he told me, is better than his mother's... which is... a really big deal.

Q - quinciñera (quedar, quemar, and quitarse). Very big stateside too. The sweet 15, big party, fancy dancing and clothes. Even with padrinos pitching in, they tend to put the family in debt for years. Other than that, the parties are a real riot as are Mexican parties in general... reason enough to move south of the border.

R - republica (and also rock, Rivera and rico). To Mexicans, the republica in all it's glory, the whole of the tierra, is their home, and their pride and joy. When in a get-to-know-you conversation with just about anyone (rich or poor), they come around to asking you which parts of the republica you conocer. Almost moaning when you haven't seen certain ones. Especially the southland beaches, the historical sites, the women in Guanajuato, and the occasional hole-in-the-wall restaurant in a city i have never heard of. DFeños and chilangos, on the whole, seemed to know and take pride in more of their land than does your typical American. Loathed, though the government and partidos are, the land is beloved. To see the republica is to know and appreciate the heart of a Mexican.

S - Slim <as in Carlos> (and also sauve, salir, suerte). While i was in Mexico, Carlos Slim, the virtual owner of Mexico, took over the reigns from Señor Gates as the world's richest person. Slim, native Mexican by birth but not blood, benefited from the government sale of public utilities and such years back, when all of the president's friends and the narco industry really became the wealthy elite. Hmmm, corrupción anyone?.

T - tortillas (and also Teotihucan, tarde, and trampa). What, can I say—they are crucial for every meal. Stale is fine if it’s all you’ve got. But a meal with out tortillas… well… it’s just not really a meal in Mexico. I gotta tell you, too, a fresh warm tortilla with a little salt, wrapped up in itself like a child's fruit roll-up, may well be one of the top 10 most comforting things on the planet. Good ones, sans package, from a tortillarilla... are highly recommend, prontito.

U - útil (and also urbano, usted and uva). Although it is tempting to make the verb ayudar (to help) into the noun form of help--don't! It's one of few verbs that can't be boiled down that way... and it is kinda embarrassing to know that and constantly do it the wrong way anyway. You might give thanks for útil, but don't give it for ayuda... ayuda no existe. It can also mean useful or tool. Oh so, útil a saber, ¿no?

V - voz (and also verdad, vez and vuelta). Of things that intrigued and impressed me, the voice (voz) of a Mexican, was among the top. In a country that has't really known stability economically and where 40% of the economy is informal, every resource, everything you own, have or can do is a potential source of income generation. The voice is key. With the voice, and there is a particular one used when folks are selling things on the street, metro, or buses, one can communicate what you have, the diez pesos price, and all of the facets about why you would want that. I would hear that particular pitch and find myself annoyed, not wanted to be sold anything, and would look around for someone to visually grumble with. But as an extranjera, i seemed to be the only one to find it abnormal and frustrating. Rich and poor buy the pirated cd's, snacks, gum, and other goods sold everywhere near you, seemingly grateful for the vendors. Ah, culture, necessity, invention.

W - Wal-mart. I will not include other options for two reasons. One, there aren't any true Spanish words that begin with W, but also because Walmart is slowly taking over Mexico with varying stores, restaurants, and factories. It's heart-breaking actually. I hope that doesn't need explanation.

X - Xochimilco (and also Xola, xilophono and xenophobia). Also and unusual letter, in Mexico it is found in it's namesake and in words (now towns and cities) named from nahutl an Atec language. It is most commonly pronounced then as "sh." The X in Xochimilco is pronounced slightly differently. (So-chee-mil-ko) is a delightful even if touristy (among Mexicans and Europeans alike) area in the south of the city full of colorful boats that glide along rural looking canals among floating gardens, tacos, beer, and musical groups from all over the republic.

Y - ya (and also yerno, yuxtaponer and yacer). Ya can communicate now, already, start, and finish. It's not only multipurpose, it's fun! Own it, work it, use it: ya.

Z - la Zona Rosa (and also Zapatista , Zócalo and zapatos). Literally the pink zone, it was once the place for wealthy elite to live, it is now the mecca for gay folk and foreigners. Also plenty of greedy restauranteers who want to exploit either of those two facets. Nice to walk around and adjacent to the Paseo de la Reforma and all her estatuas. Good times.

Now you know your Mexican ABC's... next time won't you come with me?

Ode to the Lindygroove, et. al.

2007-07-19T00:33:00.000-07:00

No, there will be no poetry tonight (sorry for misleading with "Ode"). I heard a song in the metro today that i know but can't find the title in my brain. But i do have some serious memories of dancing to it, with the-Tam and Kia in specific. It's like Ray Charles' doodling meets the Lincoln Center Jazz Orch c-jam blues meets Dave Brubeck Quartet's take five. Do you grasp the feeling, dancer people? Anyway, it was the impetous for this "Ode."

Well that, and because i'm desperately missing the dance floor, the music, and my dance partners. Oh yeah, and i suppose the fact that I leave Mexico in about twelve hours and am really not ready to process that reality... i shall gush about dancing instead of feeling sad. Posts are in progress about Mexico stuff too: hope, body image, and La Guerita's ABC's of Mexican Spanish. A lot in progress folks, so stay tuned, aight? I know your breath is bated.

Thank you to my dance buddies for your emails and inquiries and encouragement, o' my partners in joy: Ronaldo, Ian the Tamster, Marc, Mike, Lynnie and (naturally) Sammy. I can't wait for a swing-out. No, really. But i hope i remember how to dance and all. We shall soon find out. Save me the next one, eh?

...dance music, dancing homies, and the dance floor at Lindygroove... i miss you!

The Claw's Practical Applications and Other Madness

2007-07-09T18:58:00.000-07:00

You remember the claw-machine-game-thing found in arcades with stuffed animals? Well, good news, i have found a practical application for said game: drawing water from wells with a pitcher, a hanger, and rope.

To make sure you are really with me... i found photos (from L-R: the whole machine; the claw up close; and Gob of Arrested Development [RIP] in hilarious life-size claw re-enactment while dressed as the banana mascot of "The Banana Stand") and some commentary that nearly brought me to tears-o-joy compliments of gizmodo.com ("Gizmodo, the gadget guide. So much in love with shiny new toys, it's unnatural."). Their reviewer says: "Remember those @sshole claw machines that would constantly rob you of 50 cents? My grandmother's arthritis ridden hands have a tighter grip than these damn machines." Exactly.

Late Friday night when Shabrae, Miguel and I returned home from Coyocan, we discovered that there was no water and so, naturally, turned the pump on. But no water would come out. So we decided to fix it in the morning, but Shabrae was pretty sure that JL would need to "go swimming" in the morning into the cistern-thing to remove some sort of clog. Fun! We all go to bed without the ability to wash the day off. I know, life is really hard.

Being busy bee's, we hadn't time to fix the problem and so by Sunday we could no longer retrieve water from the bucket with the handle, even lying down, because the level had gotten so low. So we tied a rope to it and drew water out. (Then to be boiled and used to wash dishes and faces and teeth and such). But then the bucket broke under the weight of the water! So we tried to use pitchers but the rope wouldn't stay tied on. Finally we used wire hangers, loosely hooked around the pitcher handles, with a length of rope attached to the hanger.

And, in summary, let me tell you--i think that rich people are bored. Who needs to spend money for entertainment... one needs only a day in the life of... well, and I mean, sure, it was a frustrating process but Shabrae and I laughed so hard my stomach hurts today. Such a clumsy, inexact science. The contraption allowed for so little control and ability to create torque that it took forever and then finally we realized what it reminded us of--yes, those "@sshole" claw machines. Pardon my language, but in this case i think it provides the precise emphasis needed.

After all that, i was nasty. So i took my "bucket shower" something i haven't experienced since Manila. With warmish water i felt decently refreshed to face the world without shame. Later in the day however, when i was picking up some friends of friends at the airport (with Angel the friendly bus driver), i slipped on the slick tiling that makes up the airport and metro sidewalks in something that, to be absolutely honest, looked like gravy vomit. I wanted to believe it was mud, or even oil, but it was this gelatinous, mud-colored yet translucent substance (hence, gravy vomit). Not wanting to startle the group of extanjeros, i quickly got up, scraped my foot against the ground, said "ewe gross" (which did, in fact, help me), and kept walking. Now, i was totally internally horrified and wanted to run inside to a bathroom to bathe my foot. But then i decided that none of me was all that clean and that their friends had been waiting long enough. Take one for the team woman!

I told Angel about it and after we collaborated to figure out the word for "mud" in Spanish (to be sure, he new it, but i had to explain it in Spanish to ask him what the name of the substance was in Spanish because i forgot the word), but then i told him that i didn't really think it was that and we decided it better that i not know. Ignorance is bliss. And we laughed some more. Oh blessed, healing balm that is laughter. He distracted me by asking me to name off the most common American names (which for whatever reason we found hilarious as we named Christopher, Michael, Ryan, Brian, Heather, Jennifer, Mary, Barbara) and then to translate Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" for him into Spanish. Wow, alright homie... but it was hard to explain the parts with nonsensical pseudo-scatting. Nonetheless we had fun with it and i forgot about my nasty foot.

Well, i forgot about it until Kenya, my friend's dog, was liking my foot (as she is wont to do because i am always wearing my flip-flops to the horror and amusement of everyone here) and seemed to clean it all up, gladly. Well, that's one way to do it. I told Jean-Luc about her clean-up job on my foot right as she was licking his face... because i am that kind of gal. So thoughtful! So, while my personal hygiene here waxes and wanes, my Spanish continues to grow poco a poco.

My Feet Know the Way

2007-07-08T20:31:00.000-07:00

I mused, as i walked the streets on Saturday that my feet felt comfortable and they seemed to know the way. They did, in fact, know the way and i was, in fact, comfortable--but that seemed somehow strange. I guess i expected that in two months i would not experience the feeling of familiarity in Mexico. I was wrong.

But how could my feet be so comfortable on these streets--the ones covered with uneven dirt and mud, garbage, and i fear possibly communicable diseases breeding with each other to make super-diseases in the standing water. The streets filled with mangy dogs that at times one must throw rocks at (or in the general direction of) to keep them from (at least in one's mind) gnawing on ones' leg. I haven't seen this many stray, mangy dogs since the Ute Reservation in the summer of 1999. Oh the stories i could tell about those dogs, but i'll save them for a rainy day. But for now i just have to give you the image of one: a medium sized poodle looking dog with serious dreadlocks on it's booty and a half chewed ear. Yeah, doesn't work for me.

I am now back in the city proper, my feet strangely less comfortable on the more even streets. Like the "nostalgia for a world i never knew" (that Che is quoted as saying about Machu Pichu in Motorcycle Diaries), i think about how those streets can be filled with a kind of strangeness which must be some form of misplaced nostalgia. Otherwise, i can't place the feeling they give me: muddied streets and their dogs, a horse with it's empty cart wandering aimlessly near the corner, an ominous gray sky waiting to send the afternoon rain and something more, and then some sort of rag-time music playing. Music that is larger than life is coming from, as i turn to see, a small hand ice-cream truck of a paletetero.

Where am i?

Unsure though i am of my exact location in the vast and partly unknown cosmos (most of the time), my feet, with their chipping red nail polish, are confident as they hop between puddles, as they lead me from here to there with many "buenos [insert time of day]" coming from the mouth part of my face... the part of my head which muses (again), shaking itself, wondering how it can feel so far from this part of it's own body. It thinks too much, that's the problem.

I was surprised as i read a blog post by a woman who is also staying with my friends for a few weeks, at how succinctly and clearly (something i routinely fail at) she captured some of the visceral feeling and physical description of this place--as well as their implications. Well done Amy, but don't take my word for it (shameless Reading Rainbow quote):

Coming in I had heard that it was a community in the earlier stages of its development but had no idea really what to expect. As we arrived we drove up and down the muddy dirt roads looking at the grey concrete houses, many of them unfinished. We passed the sewage canal and the soccer field, lots of small businesses and stray dogs, and even a horse! The community had a surreal or other worldy quality about it then, and to me it still does.

I feel like I don't really understand what it means to live here. We visited the local secondary school and I was initially shocked by the conditions there: trash everywhere, dogs wandering through the school, a pile of old furniture on the roof. The students running around wildly and refusing to stay in their classrooms while teachers tried to grade or teach.

Even though it surprised me, I don't feel like I can really grasp what it would be like to go to school there. Nor do I understand what it would be like to live with a crippling but preventable disease, without a father, in a shack surrounded by piles of garbage, or in the other conditions that plague this community.

...It's colder at night, we wash our clothes by hand, and if we forget to buy bottled water we have to boil some. . .but we still have a strong spiritual community, and are immune from so many of the forces that perpetuate poverty here...

Yesterday I talked to one of the girls from our community for a long time and the topic of immigration to the U.S. came up. She explained that although many of the fathers in the community had left for the United States, hers had stayed. I thought about it for a long time. I've studied immigration a lot and I generally think the U.S. should have a much more liberal policy than we do -- but at the same time I've always told myself that if I were a Mexican man I would never leave my family, that the extra luxuries aren't worth the destruction in relationships.

Seeing our community though, I understand that remittances from the U.S. buy more than bicycles and ice cream. They are often the difference between the abject poverty of a cardboard shack and the ability to own a small home made out of concrete blocks that keeps out the wind and the rain. So now I don't know.

Home is...

2007-07-02T18:32:00.000-07:00

that place inside one's one skin. Which may or may not follow you on your travels. Sometimes it is a few weeks behind, sometimes it never comes. But i am home again. I think I rediscovered mine when i learned better how to laugh in Spanish. The differences are subtle but important.

¿Quien sabía? that there was so much laughter in my home, in my skin. It seems to be like the garlic-and-onions necessary ingredients for being okay. Being away from, well, home, makes so much clearer who you are, what you want, what you need. I have found my feet again, i am me... in laughter, in joy.

Not that kind of laughter that covers over anger or nervousness or fear, the kind that keeps perspective. The kind that makes life feel alive with joy and irony--which always seems to remind me how little i know.

I am just outside D.F. in the northeast in what is contending for the future title of the world's largest slum community--depending on whose stats you use, naturally. I have found myself more at home here than in the city. It is less comfortable for my body, but more hospitable for my soul. My home, just below the dermis, is present, once again.

Little Lupita dances in circles, she and i both princesses as we dance together to the musica (Norte), celebrating one of her cousins, someone i don´t know. She and i have an intercambio of spanish and english, a nine year old one of my best and most patient maestras. I loved every minute of the fiesta, still i wished i could've danced with Sam too. (And i am absolutely dying for a swing out! :)

Popcorn flies in the air and lands in my mouth. The childrens and i spend an evening laughing at how they can't do it. For a moment i´m a living breathing party trick: the modern day clown or pony who entertains the childrens and messies the dirt floor. But all their parents smile at me, seemingly glad that i just decided to be at home, glad that i was not unsure of how to be. Decidely wierd... but welcome.

Miguel tells me a joke in Spanish and i finally understood, and laughed. We are both stoked. Graciously, he recites again the words of the songs sung for the piñatas and birthday cake cutting... almost as motivated as i am to make sure that the culture and the language are not lost on me. Occasionaly he also teaches me words in Nahuatl, the Aztec language of his family, which also claims the names of many streets and cities in Mexico, and corrects my por and para, my azucar, and util.... to name just a few.

As i see a fresh piece of dog jaw by the black waters with Ramon... i laugh even then, wondering if that was the dog i had heard shrieking in the night previous. This time the is chuckle for sadness, nervousness, for the shaking my head at the reality of the place. Things that are different, things that are similar. Things which i can't concieve of when i've not been here. Prespective.

Even as i miss home and long for it's (yes) dirty skyline... i am content, i am at home in myself with the hospitible addition of laughter. There is laughter. More than half of which is at myself. And that, that is just fine.

Monday Morning Sentiments, on Tuesday

2007-06-19T10:00:00.000-07:00

The phone speaks Spanish, MySpace, Google, and the Italian coffee shop owners, they all speak Spanish. But the microwave speaks English.

I have a new favorite color. It's Mexico blue. I don't know it's official name, but it's the particular shade of blue that Frida and countless other Mexican's have painted their houses. It's bright, it's alive, it gives life. Eat your heart out green, there's a new gal in town.

The men at the park, more indigenous than mestizo break concrete with their tools. With each swing and clunk on the ground i wonder if this time their teeth will fall out. In the fourth dimension i watch the long- term damage being done to their skeletal systems. Our backs weren't created for such work, i think to myself, they were created just strong enough to bear the burdens of being alive and fallen.

I could eat a coconut popsicle everyday, delicious, rico, and only $0.55 USD.

In my notebook, topical vocabulary en Spanish, yesterday on family. A hundred words of all colors and sentiments and actions: divorce, marriage, adoption, birth, death, laughing, crying, love, hate, fear, abuse, abandon, fun, contribution, sickness, abortion, life, smiling, correction, decisions, immigration, moving, health, division, separation, individual, community.

I'm tired of the staring. "Hola guera" has nothing on the way that men stare you down here. On the metro, the bus, the street, in their car. This morning, the urge was strong to pick up a rock and throw it at their effing heads. I usually don't have such strong instinctual reactions of violence. Stronger, perhaps, due to the lack of dancing, excercize, creative and physical outlets in general. It's there though, and i don't know how to reconcile it and i can't pretend it isn't there.

This city is one of the most beautiful and vast that i have been in. It has culture and history and quaint little districts and lively central areas. It has people and food and cheap transportation. But i still miss home. Nonetheless I'm planning a half-day grand adventure on Thursday after classes. There's at least five or so more places i want to see before i return.

Today marks the one month count down to leaving Mexico.

Lots of swirly thoughts about getting new work in the fall. Skills and talents. Weaknesses. Dreams and fears. Hopes. Growth. Stagnation. What am i good at? What do i want? What will give me space to be in my 'hood?

There is a cafe in the Zona Rosa i will study in today. Last week i sat there and watched people parade past the large wall of windows. It reminded me of a day i had in Santa Monica last year this time that i wrote about: Journaling in Santa Monica. People don't smile at each other here on the street, or look at each other usually (except the men staring you down). But, last week a boy, of maybe seven years old, was walking with his parents, hip and trendy in their head-to-toe black attire. He wrestled free from their hands, jumped up on the wall, and got real close to my face, through the window... tapped on the glass and smiled, and then (naturally) ran away. As a child he's allowed to do that, break the norm, shove his way into someone else's world and say hello. And even next to Beto's advice and companionship... it was the best thing that happened all week.

Learned a lot about the gay culture here (which seems to exist primarily in the Zona Rosa), and i saw a lot of Public Displays of Foreplay by straight and queer couples alike. PDA's have nothing on PDF's which seem to happen with uncanny frequency on the Metro. Yum. (Hopefully the sarcasm is clear).

Aight, well, got conversation class soon, so i will stop rambling, whining, and bubbling on. But "hi" everyone. That's all, "hi."

Montezuma Exacts His Revenge

2007-06-14T20:00:00.000-07:00

And he did, so well, in fact, that i started this post a week ago and haven't been able to finish. Okay, it wasn't all his fault but it was a major reason. I've just been so tired, and um, preoccupied.

There is a saying here, when extranjeros have stomach problems, they say it is "Montezuma's Revenge." It is also called turista. Last week on Wednesday night at about 4pm started frequent trips to the bathroom, and still today they continue. It has ranged from pretty severe to moderate, but my food flows more quickly than my Spanish, unfortunately. I have no idea how i got this, since i have been really careful--but i know if just happens to gueros. Montezuma's revenge on us for all the hell we wreaked on Mexico so many years ago.

In Mexico you can't drink the water, so you either have to have a purifier or bottled water. It also means you have to wash all the produce you buy in purified water and special soap. And you gotta be real thoughtful where you chose to eat even in the city. But i have been. Rar!

However, i have a slight hunch i picked something up from a restaurant at the mall. I had eaten it and then went to shop at the super market. I decided to breeze by the drug-aisle to see what was available in case i should need it for the future. I was looking in the stomach-aids section and there was this tape-worm medicine (complete with picture of a tape worm on the front which made me a little nauseous) ready-to-go. "My God, how often do people get tapeworm?" I thought to myself. Within 20 minutes the problemas began... was it the tape worm imagery or the food i had eaten in the mall, or something else? I had had a hamburger ("gasp," is the response of those of you who know me, i know... but i have been really dizzy and anemic-y so i though it better to have a little iron via red meat at a clean looking chain restaurant) and the next 24 hours were hellish. It may have been food poisoning. But then my stomach never returned to normal. Not at all.

My only other thought is that i picked up some sorta parasite on the Metro or in a public restroom. Sick. The Metro is nasty and although i am not a germ-a-phobe i fear for all sorts of diseases while i am on it and want to stop children from pressing their faces against the windows (as children are wont to do). But it is cheap and effective and everyone rides it. For 2 pesos (less than USD $0.20 eat your heart out B.A.R.T.) you can go anywhere in the city and pretty quickly. There is a joke that Mexicans have about the Metro.

Cuando toma el Metro obtene tres servicios por un precio: transportacion, sauna, y masaje.

When you ride the Metro you get three services for one (low) price: transportation, sauna, and massage.

And it's true. You get where you need to go. You (some times) feel not only hot but wonder if the sweat and germs are mixing together to create a perfect environment for any number of diseases to thrive. And finally because people are literally packed in so tight you can't move (i have not been able to get off at my stop more than once) you get sort of a full-body massage. Also sometimes men feel that that is an appropriate time to grope you what with it being so hard to distinguish with all the touching. Oh but the difference is crystal clear. (Some of the lines have the two front cars reserved for women during morning and evening rush hour for this reason). Oh, the Metro.

But really my stomach is mystery. And it may be sort of an X-file. Ojala, it will adjust. Ojala.

Yesterday, Beto, a friendly restaurant owner a block from where my school is, asked me how i was, like he does every day. And i said that i was okay. To which he responded that i must sit down and tell him what was going on. And i did, even though i was late (big shock) for class. So we chatted and i told him a little about my stomach (with out TMI :) and he was concerned it was a bigger problem, even if i am a guera. He said i needed two things. One was pollo o asada sin grasa. Which, I knew he could provide for me the next day for about 40 pesos (not bad). The second thing, though first to do, was to get some medicine. In Mexico you don't need perscriptions for hardly anything, including antibiotics. So Beto, the restaurant owner, friend, and doctor, told me what to purchase, how often to take it, and to check back the next day. So off i went to the farmacia and got my $8.00 antibiotic course which very well could have been any number of different things and the package and pharmacist shared no additional information. So armed with my Bactrin, my trust in Beto and the goodness of humanity, i wage war on the problems in my stomach. (All the while remembering that usually i like to understand and work with my body not wage war on myself... alas).

So it would seem that my stomach problems could be because of and resolved by Mexicans: Montezuma and Beto, respectively.

Poco a Poco.

2007-06-02T17:51:00.000-07:00

I'm in Mexico.

I'm in D.F. (Distrito Federal, like D.C. in the States) or Mexico City. The only foreigner i have seen, me. Immersion. Yep. TV, news, food, packaging on cereal boxes and milk, conversation, questions, answers, confusion, clarity--all in Spanish. I just found one English station on the TV where i am staying, and although i initially thought it a bad idea to tune out of my immersion temporarily, i am finding it a welcome relief for a few moments. Not too much, soon i will make a little dinner and then go out on the rooftop to pray.

Yesterday was a long day, concluded with my first attempt to dialogue with the divine in Spanish. It was challenging, but good. Sometimes when you strip all your fancy words and thoughts away and communicate simply, it is more honest. And it helped me unwind a little bit. And boy have i been wound up.

I have been wound up from the last two days... as i have found myself surviving fine but unaccustomed to the colloquial/proverbial Spanish everyone around me is speaking. Yesterday i went to the bank, the gym, the mercado, and a cafe to top it all off. I needed to study past-tense conjugations and continue working on my vocabulary. I have so much to learn. Last night after walking right past the woman and the house where i am staying (i was reading something as i walked) we had a good laugh about my absentmindedness and how "mi cabeza esta en los cielos." Truly. Later when i told her how much i had to learn, she comforted me and said "poco a poco," which means little by little.

It was a small statement and yet it was like a healing balm. The way she said it covered over the people who weren't kind to me that day, as though behind the words was a sentiment like this "you are trying as hard as you can, now be still, it will come." Or maybe she just meant little by little.... so, there's that. Either way, helpful.

The two weeks leading up to my getting here were full of stress and confusion for me. Lots to do, lots was said. Saw family and friends and lots of suitcases. And it was feeling hard to leave, and sad. I was so wound up. So as i sat outside with my journal and Bible, which i didn't crack open, I simply prayed in Spanish and in silence and i unraveled. And i cried and i let myself feel sad. Enjoying and lamenting the soledad. Letting them both be there even though it doesn't feel rational.

I sent a long email to Sam this morning. I found myself wandering the streets of the neighborhood i am staying in shortly thereafter, cabeza en los cielos otra vez, thinking of Sam and how i'd pay a lot of money right then to see him laugh or to see his sort of amused/indignant/why-i-oughta look after i say something he finds foolish. And then i decided that $20 is a lot of money and that yes, i would gladly pay $20 for either of those two things. But there are more than sixty days until that is a possibility. Alas and alack.

I have decided to write about my travels, observations, and learning in a separate blog. One i will use to catalogue my notes for my personal use but which you can read if you would like. It will be more detailed but less about how i am doing, more about what i am observing. I am basically taking field-notes of things i see, and will begin to do so in somewhat exhaustive detail. You may find this fascinating or like a double-dose of Nyquil.... but if you are interested, go here: http://lasnotasdelcampo.blogspot.com/ lay-out inspired by the lively colors all around me. Mexicans seem to love color and they know how to work it. Work it good.

There are so much things to say right now but i am coming close to a sort of internal sense of my daily maximum of English. And i am sure your attention span is nearing it's end as well. So, i will bid you adieu with one final request for socorro. If you have any idea how to catch your breath while in high-altitude areas, let me know. I'm at about 7,500 feet and feeling a bit constantly winded. Rar. Tips, thoughts, and deep thoughts on the subject greatly appreciated.

Ugg!

2007-05-29T13:52:00.001-07:00

That's kinda how i feel.

I'm Abnormal

2007-05-13T23:03:00.001-07:00

This is being posted at the request of a few folks. It is the written form, though written to be spoken, of my sharing at a recent Servant Partners event. The prompt was to share two minutes on the process which led us to work with SP, or our hopes and dreams, or prayer requests for our ministry. Here is what i came up with.

---
Three years ago, while I was still living in the Bay Area, I was in a season of dealing with some of my emotional and spiritual un-health, and had been out of any sort of official "ministry" role for multiple years, to do so. In the midst of this though, I had began to actively process when I could get involved in urban poor ministry again… and what I could do, what gifts I could bring, what my heart longed to be a part of, what the Lord required of me.

One night during this season I was driving home from work, it was pouring outside, and I saw a man fall into a gutter and not get up. As a female who has had “ministry to homeless men” experiences go pretty badly, I had a brief inner struggle about what to do. But seeing that no one was stopping, I pulled over and got out of my car. I walked over to him and after three tries, helped him up. He was utterly drunk, just wasted, and couldn’t hold himself up. I leaned him against a wall, which he gripped for dear life, as he cried softly. Both of us got drenched as I tried to figure out what to do next, and I learned his name was Larry. Finally, Larry, was able to sort out where I could take him for shelter and so I helped him to the car. As we walked he began to sob and then he stopped me saying “Why are you helping me?” I just stared, confused, so he repeated “Why are you helping me…” and then he said something I will never forget “…this is my hardest night, why are you helping me?”

What Larry didn’t know was that, it was my hardest night too. I was also in a gutter, an extended dark night, a season of walking in a valley darker than I knew existed. The kind of dark valley where images of green pastures and cool waters (psalm 23) only feel cruel. And so I told him, though he was surely too drunk to really hear me, that we all need someone to pick us up out of the gutter sometimes and get us to a safe place. Before I saw Larry that night, while I was driving home, I had been thinking about how I longed to feel “normal” again, or “normal” finally. While I got Larry into the car and into his seatbelt, the exhortation of one of my mentors finally made sense to me… she had told me that I should not long for a normal life. First of all, I shouldn’t long for that because there is no such thing as normal. But mostly, I shouldn’t long for that because a beautiful life is far from normal… but also far better.

And see, as I was picking him up out of the gutter, God was picking me up out of my internal gutter. So that even amidst my season of darkness I began to long for a beautiful life: a life in which people like Larry and people like myself got pulled out of gutters and reminded that they weren’t alone.

Isaiah tells me that when I share my food with the hungry, or provide the poor wanderer with shelter, that when I clothe the naked, and do not turn away from others in need… that it is then that my light will break forth, that my healing will quickly appear, and that my righteousness will go before me. Isaiah promise that the glory of the Lord will be my rear guard.

And i want to testify that this is true. Within the year of Larry and I meeting on our shared hardest night, I had moved to L.A., where I have, finally, made my home, where my healing is evident, and where I have a very abnormal and very beautiful life.

Potential, Stagnation, and Overwhelm-ed-ness

2007-05-07T14:32:00.000-07:00

So much rumination, so little time. Said slightly differently... so much stagnation and lack of creative productivity due to fear about imperfection. It happens. And i would have to say it has happened to me, or rather that i have happened to it (ah, ownership) quite daily for the past couple of months. My head is so full of unprocessed thoughts, ideas and dreams. It is full of unacknowledged fears, insecurities, and confusion.

I leave for my Mexico stint of just over two months in just over three weeks. This is pressing in on me. I finally found myself again this morning, but precariously in the midst of a collision of having an under-processed head and heart, an over-processed and highly important yet undone to-do list, and transition... transition, all around. Again. All that plus an integrity breach. This morning my spirit feels heavy. And it's warm outside, hot actually.

(whiner)

Sigh. But my nasturtiums have bloomed--eight orange and yellow blooms! They are the ones i planted on Feb 12 on my day off, something to give me hope and a spicy, beautiful garnish on salads. Hurray! Last night Sam ate his first nasturtium, even if a little dismayed that we hadn't washed them first, while we sat out front and looked at the stars, which were actually visible in the LA sky. Meanwhile, in my stubborness to remain outside, I played oblivious to the shady deal happening in the car in the driveway next door.

My church, while taxing, is something i have wanted for a long time, something i delight in, something that meets my spirit in place i rarely realize i need in a way i never would have attempted. I share Sunday mornings with six people i respect and collaborate with whose gifts and brokenness i know deeply, and with our equally broken and beloved friends and neighbors: families, current and former gang bangers, unwed barely-teenage mothers, latchkey kids, rude junior high-ers, addicted gamblers, hungry children, and an otherwise obnoxious 6th grader who takes a minute to grab my attention before church and tell me he likes the way i decorate the garage. And as he does, my under-processed heart, overwhelmed mind, my fears and insecurities, my pipe dreams, they unlock a little bit. They unlock but i hadn't realized that they had been tight at all.

They continue to release when our pastor suggests that we commit to rolling with Jesus this week and the first person to respond is a man with a gang tattoo gracing his bald head. I respond too, my heart softened by a man most might see as hard, and the hands of our rag-tag church on my shoulders praying for me as i so need. His courage inspired mine, and reminded me what is true, and good, and right.

They release when i hear a young child, still illiterate as is appropriate for his age, signing a song louder and slightly more off key than anyone else. Singing words, a story, a commitment, that he has learned orally. The keeper of our oral tradition who reminds me "Blessed be your name, when the sun's shining down on me, when the world's all as it should be, blessed me your name. Blessed be your name, when i'm found in the desert place, though i walk through he wilderness, blessed be your name... Blessed be the name of the Lord." Yes, I will bless the name of the Lord, even or maybe especially, when i find myself bewildered. In so doing, i focus on what is good and not the inward-spiraling nuerosis of studying and hating on my imperfections and failures. How's that for consecration?

I am viscerally experiencing my failures and my fears. As i know it is not by avoiding but by pushing through them that fears are expelled, I find myself therefore compelled to post this here rambling bit of writing. This reality couples with the encouragement of seeing my friend and incredible artist, Sommer, to bring you this chunk-let of my head. Compelled, even convicted, because i am doing nothing to give myself to the written word to which i am so grateful. Really creativity, and me, have been in a silent row, over priorities and time, for the last month since my hip injury took me away even from dancing--we would meet together only on Sunday mornings when i try to make the garage we meet in a little more welcoming and engaging. (Alas!)

I fear writing, i do. I fear opening myself up to the critical eye, even while i (perhaps ironically) continually long for the compassionate critical eye, and in so doing find so much unrecognized potential in me. Therefore it was notable to me, that as i procrastinated from resting this morning (yes, even rest, can be avoided by a neurotic), flipping through a book catalogue, I found a book by beloved Thomas Merton on the vocation of writing called Echoing Silence. I will end in the characteristically cliche manner i am so fond of and could one day be chided for, with a quotation (from said book):
"If a writer is so cautious that [she] never writes anything that cannot be criticized, [she] will never be able to write anything that can be read. If you want to help other people, you ave got to make up your mind to write things that some men will condemn."

Everybody, Meet Sam... Sam, Meet Everybody

2007-04-18T09:00:00.000-07:00

So i was commenting to one of my lovely roommates the other night that one of the strangest things about the fact that i am dating someone right now, is that i can't share it with my old friends, and by old i mean Nor-Cal-ish. Why? Because they don't know the man. So, technology: it doesn't substitute for the real thing, but it will have to suffice in the face of, well, reality. So, your formal introduction(s):

Everybody, meet Sam... Sam, meet everybody.

This post is a lil' bit about Sam-u-el, which is not his birth name though it is one of his seven given names, all of which mean something. (As always, i've included plenty of interesting and/or absurd links). After you read, or, rather, if you tire of reading (gregarity knows no brevity), make sure to leave a comment and say "hi" to Sam. Phoneticallyish speaking, I say "high" while Sam says "eh-low." And, it's his birthday this Saturday. So, happy birthday Sam.

I met Sam through Servant-Partners-type-stuff. He didn't grow up around here. He grew up in Nigeria and then came to the city of Los Angeles in high school, went to UCLA, where he (despite being a big fan) never caught a live Bruins Basketball game. This has been, as i am sure you are guessing from my tone, an item i have given him hell about, more than once. When on the court himself, Sam's a good defensive player (and therefore i vowed to the neighborhood kids i wouldn't bring him back to play with us on Sundays), as in, not one of us could rebound over him, not to save our lives. Rar. But i could beat him in a shooting contest. Hehehe. (If you are thinking that was unnecessary to say... i say, hey i'm just trying to give you the facts here, pure observation, not a hint of value-judgement. Okay, fine, a hint, but not a very strong hint).

Sam, as a general rule, doesn't think deep thoughts are very funny, even when i tell them. But he promises he's not getting annoyed with me for persisting in their re-telling. And that counts for something. I'm taking him through my school-of-mischief-n'-fun. He's progressing quite quickly, a good student! In fact, from the start he was a better free-style walker than i, but i'm not bitter.

He's a good sport about me teasing him about his accent. It's great fun! And when i ask real nice he'll speak to me in Yoruba (and last week... Pigeon English!), even though i haven't the slightest idea what he is saying. I've tried to guess and i end up way off. Reminds me that assumption is not my friend. He's taught me about about ten words in Yoruba and i use them in combinations that make Sam look like i just burned the Nigerian flag or a Nigerian national soccer team uniform, or something godawful like that.

His favorite cuisines are Indian, Thai, and Nigerian. (It's like a spicy meatball). We have completely different personality types. But shockingly similar opinions on politics and theology. We both love Jesus. I can't quite fit him into any box (not because he's too big, i mean a mental box) because Sam, as a product, is not easily packagable. Despite the fact that he's a techie, he doesn't always compute. And i mean that in a positive way.

He seems quiet but if you cross the unseen-line-in-the-sand you will hear him; he seems reserved but if you take Sam and drop him in the middle of, say, a wedding reception, you will find out that Sam loves to dance. Just add water or apple juice and he comes alive. See exhibit A, to the left, out of which i have been cropped because it's a terrible picture of me, even if a fun one of Sam.

Sam's pretty darn thoughtful. I'd thank mother Nigeria for it, but he has a lot of character, so it could just be a Sam thing. I don't know. He's hard for me to read, which is unusual, and therefore a little hard for me to figure out. That's at least partly fun, though. Partly.

Lastly... here are some photos that have him and me. And no, I'm not a big fan of taking photos, let alone the hey-look-at-me type of photos, but... dear friends and readers you have a special place in my heart and as we were recently at a couple weddings where photos were taken... here we are...

Happy birthday Sammy.

He is Risen (He is Risen Indeed)

2007-04-13T15:05:00.000-07:00

In liturgical protestant churches, the above phrase is call and response of Easter morning.

Easter is a big deal for me and my friends here in my neighborhood. We had a great day together with some of our neighbors trying to psychically wrastle with this crazy idea Christians believe in: resurrection. We also had a really big party complete with jumper, sumo wrestling, and $0.25 tacos. We had a great day, even though i was gimped-out from a mysterious hip injury.

Anyway... i see little resurrections often. Phoenixes (is that the plural form of Phoenix?) rising from their ashes. The ashes of other people's smoldering hatred, condemnation, cruelty, or prophecies about their worthlessness. I see kids trying to chose a Way that is contrary to the limited options they see around them. I see adults trying to chose a Way that is contrary to the options they can fathom. I see people broadening their definition of family, engaging with the politics of who-gets-to-belong. On Sunday, and on most other days, yes... i am one of those crazy Christians who believes in resurrection.

Below: photos from our down-home-urban-resurrection-celebration.

every blessing to you.

Thoughts I Thought I Heard From the Heads of Others in Their More Reflective Moments and Some That Were Actually Spoken

2007-03-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

***

Only fifteen, so beautiful, but she will not have a quincinera, what a shame. She will be just like her mother, just like me, because she is a mother now. She looks at me... I smile, look away, so that she doesn't read the disappointment behind my eyes. I think she already knows.

***

Driving through South Pasadena, by the high school, they gasp.

"No fences... that means, they are like free..." says J.
And A adds in "oh, that's because it's calm here?"
"Calm?" i asked (knowing full well what A meant).
"Yeah, like in neighborhoods like this it's quiet, there's no violence, not like ours."

In the end though they all decide they like our LH home over the big quiet streets because "people here don't talk to each other and they can't bump Reggaeton."

That's true i tell them, they don't.

***

My indifference is the mask i wear to hide the bitterness, the self-loathing. I'm 61, this is not the life i dreamed of. The lives of my family, are not what i intended them to be. The door is locked.

***

Looking through the window, watching, waiting, wondering... will i suddenly understand how to manage the tensions? Or is life a continual managing of things that don't resolve? Is it simple contentment with today even when the parts i have do not yet reconcile the equation? Is it that i have failed to understand the possibility of resolution or the nature of reality? ...oops, i was drooling, lost in thought. Did anyone notice? I am alone.

***

Centential Post

2007-03-13T22:04:00.000-07:00

Ninety-nine published posts on my blog, ninety-nine published posts... you take one down and link it around [but it's electronic silly so] now there are [still] ninety-nine published posts on my blog.

But this one makes a hundred.

I wrote, er... revised, that special song as a way to celebrate that it's been a fun year and a half of musing and writing and...

Thanks for playing.

The end.

Random thoughts about being overwhelmed.

2007-03-06T22:35:00.000-08:00

I have eleven voice-mails on my phone and too many emails in my inbox.

The mice, which are finally dying, are decaying in the walls. We finally figured out what that smell was. Yuck.

I feel a little like, in my relationship to hope, an asthmatic, full of breath most of the time, but having attacks more often than i would like. Gasping for air. Always finding it, but sad at how much around me tightens my pipes. Or perhaps it is just a sign of how little i am able to see the unseen, naturally.

Sarah Jensen's wall was tagged again. For some reason it depresses me when hers in particular is tagged, even though it is not a personal attack. It's just that she's so old.

I think my body is a little like a welfare mother who has tried countless times to become self-sustaining, but always some unforeseen issue holds her back. She gets frustrated but is always striving.

Right now racism of all sorts is weighing in heavy on my heart. That and arrogance. Assumption. I can't pretend it doesn't have effect on me, doesn't affect me, doesn't infect me.

I'm really tired.

Requiem for a Restful Night’s Sleep (Etc).

2007-03-02T11:23:00.000-08:00

It’s 3 o’clock in the morning. (There’s a soulful Ike and Tina song about that time of morning). I noted it as I awoke and checked the clock, trying to push through the membrane of sleep into the confusion of the noises directly outside my window.

The neighbors (&Co.) were up again. It was confirmed recently by another neighbor that the whole house most likely has a meth addiction (short of the two children who I desperately want to see in a capable home). Late nights of yelling, always yelling, always profane, always late and/or early. Late late, up later and later. Upper late. Up late. Uppers.

Mother sounds desperate for (perhaps) the first time, desperate and vulnerable like her children are. Usually she sounds angry, mean, cold. She sounds like a child, about to be beat by her babydaddy. I’ve never seen (er, heard) him around, but that had to be who she kept asking not to hit her.

He wasn’t hitting her while I was awake. Or my fingers would have hit the numbers on my phone buttons in this exact order: “9”-“1”-“1”. “Call”.

I sent some prayers to heaven… no I shared some prayers with jesus, some dialog that is. But I didn’t know what to say. So I repeated my mantra saved for moments of confusion about what would be better, about what to hope for, what to ask for. For moments when the only clarity I have is that I am in the midst of someone else’s deep-pit darkness. (For moments when I envision, even if an attempt out is made, someone trying years of therapy and then backsliding and trying and failing, failing and trying). For moments when all i can see is a scene of hopelessness, when i need to remember the unseen. Lord Have Mercy. Christ Have Mercy.

Repeat, repeat like a child. Repeat while cold, lying in my bed. Cold, repeating mantra. Unsure. Very sad. Lord Have Mercy. Christ Have Mercy.

I didn’t bother trying to sleep. I felt unsure about how hard to try to understand what was going on, especially given that half of me is still stuck behind my virtual-sleepyhead-membrane-thing. I felt unclear about what to do. Lord Have Mercy. Christ Have Mercy.

What does it mean to love your neighbor?

I don’t remember when it stopped but I remember it stopping. And then I remember the mother, usually so angry, whimpering in fear, I think I heard her go inside. It was quiet-ish again. Lord Have Mercy. Christ Have Mercy.

A few minutes later I went back to sleep, dreamt of egregiously dirty bathrooms, toilets overflowing, and a fifty-year-old-ish man aggressively hitting on me, inviting me outright to sleep with him. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to get out of the situation. I was confused. But at least that was just a dream.

In my dream, I was confused like the reality from earlier that night, outside my window. But unlike the dream I wasn’t trying to get out of the difficult reality, rather I was trying to make sense of what it meant and what to do, given that I am very much in the middle of it.

Lord Have Mercy. Christ Have Mercy.

Celebrate Good Times

2007-02-22T10:00:00.000-08:00

Come on.

Someday i'll be less bubbly and wordy, but today is not that day. I suppose you could think of reading my blog as a way to practice patience. (It'll help, i promise). Here's what i am celebrating:

Chinese New Year. Last weekend i had the good pleasure of celebrating Chinese new year with Lynnski. It was delightful... and i think i much favor ringing in the new year at this time of year than January. Western new year comes smooshed in with Thanksgiving and Christmas and you sort of start to feel like it's all one big holiday. Western new year is mostly meaningless and symbol-less except for the countdown and the breaking in of a new calender. Debauchery (:) doesn't seem to require a holiday--otherwise i'd note it's part in the festivities. Chinese new year is rich and full of meaning more like passover. A fish eaten but the head and tail left, representative of bookends of the year to come: beginning and end. Fruit symbolically important. Prosperity and red and hombaow and an animal whose year it is. I felt more able to reflect on the year coming and the year past. And plus for about four hours i was out of the city in a suburb near Pomona. It was quiet in a way that it is easy for me to forget that it can be quiet. I drank good tea, enjoyed good company, and had homestyle Chinese food: shabu shabu. Lynn and her family are lovely, her dad making sure that i understood in a clear even if slightly broken colloquial way "when you are here, make yourself like you are at home. not like a stranger. comfortable. feel like the family." Happy New Year.

Lent. It is true that lent is not exactly a celebrative season unless it is clear that not all celebrations are initially joyful. I mean Christians that practice the discipline of lent "give up" or "take on" something for forty days as a way to experience a small drop of discomfort to identify with the suffering of Jesus. And... to identify the places in us averse to the slightest suffering and to seek to be healed of our egregious entitlement to comfort. I have not yet decided on what i want to do for my practice this year i think because like every year...i don't want to be uncomfortable. It is forty-seven days (if you include sundays) of preparation, of recognition, of mourning. Concluding in a day of ultimate celebration, of surprise, of victory. Death, while not something that can be avoided, is not something to fear. It does not have the last word. How can that be?

Yesterday i went to mass after work, walked to the church on Sichel Street with the masses of people and received instruction in Spanish (of which i was able to take in disappointing little) and ashes on the forehead "from dust you came and to dust you shall return." We take ashes on our forehead in the shape of a cross, a reminder of our created-ness, our being creatures, dust-creatures, a mark of mourning, a recognition of suffering. Ash Wednesday or Miercoles de Cienza is a very popular tradition in my neighborhood, as is Catholicism in general with it's perpetually crucified jesus... is it perhaps because they see their own story in jesus' suffering? Is it that they can relate? With the masses, herded in and out of the church, i was honored to share in a moment of solitude, reflection, humility, and solidarity of confusion as i missed much of what was spoken due to the rustiness of my espanish. I was taken aback by the sight of a 60ish year old man, gruff and sturdy looking, who went to receive his ashes with tears dripping from his nose. I was delighted by a middle-school aged youth in his wheelchair, mentally disabled, clapping and squealing for joy after receiving his ashes, in stark contrast to the solemn religious tone. Yet, it was an action that i have little doubt was the utter delight not only of me but of his creator.

Truth. I am reading a fantastic book right now. It's too bad i'm too cheap to buy the hardcover, because i think it has a sick-ass design which the paperback does not have. But don't judge it or buy it for the cover art: buy it for the content. It's called Velvet Elvis. I was sceptical from the preface/introduction that i would like it . But now i am so enthralled. I am so grateful for the author, Rob Bell. He says that sense "the world is soaked in the presence of God" and that "anybody is capable of speaking the truth. Any body from any perspective, from any religion, anywhere," that we out to "affirm the truth wherever [we] find it...claim it. If it is true, if it is beautiful, if it is honorable, if it is right, then claim it. Because it is from God. And you belong to God." He says that "Christian is a great noun and a terrible adjective." He therefore rejects the idea of Christian music, work, politics and discusses the problematic nature of the word as an adjective. And since truth and God are everywhere he says that missionaries really should just be tour guides. People who find the true things and the presence of God in a place as it is and direct others' attention to it, direct their attention to the Creator in the midst of the things they do everyday, the things they already believe--like Paul the apostle in Athens. No one needs anyone to bring God anywhere because the earth is the Lord's and all that is within it. I am grateful for the ways God has shown me truth all around me in my church, the neighborhood kids, the basketball court, my "garden," in scripture, and in Bell's book. Speaking of books, I've had several inquires into my current/recent reads (Book Report 2006?), so i'll just post them up with my thumbs up/down/neutral. This weekend. Ojala. Mkay.

Growth. Of all my causes for celebration i would say i am most grateful for the daily and oft overlooked miracle of growth. There are new things growing in me, deepening, wrapping their roots around my heart. (Also, new feelings growing for a new person). And I am seeing it all around me, especially in the youth who live in the alley. Oh my God i love these kids, i see my passion for life grow and my desire to live long increase that i can peek in on their lives and see what happens. They are bundles of potential and insight and tension--and i want to be around to see their perpetual blossoming. Since most of them are dudes, they would not appreciate a word like blossom, a little femme, no? I'll work on something more masculine. Lord have mercy. But actually although they are so inspiring to me, my plants right now have me captive. Which is perhaps the real culprit in comparing those youth to flowers :).

I planted some nasturtiums out front along the fence ten days ago on my day off, my Sabbath day. It was very restful. And the package said they would take ten days and then i would see a sprout. Well, after i planted them, i accidentally sent a flood their way (uninteresting story so i'll leave it out) and worried that i may have set them up for failure as it would bring some of the rocky soil, the weeds and such back into their environment from the pile i had created and it would send the seeds to far down into the soil that it might be too difficult to push themselves back out. My best intentions combined with carelessness could kill them instead of bringing them to life (the root of much misdirection?). So, I worried, i watched, i waited. Today... i have many little sprouts. In a few months i will have a climbing, flowering, bright and beautiful, plant attached to the fence. And yummy, spicy flowers to add color and life to salads! Yay. The nasturtiums have given me hope. As has the oregano which froze in the unusually cold LA january. But i cut it all the way back, removed the dead and threw it into the fire, er garbage, and low and behold it's coming back. Bright green, tasty, and beautiful. The lavender, unfortunately, was not so lucky.

Each morning i open my curtains to let the sunlight in to feed the plants their sunlight vitamins. Every couple of days i turn them so that they grow strong from having to continually grow toward the light. It must be frustrating to them to feel like they are not making progress. But then maybe i am just personifying how my own growth feels. Grow in one direction, turn and grow in another direction. It's confusing at times but it keeps things balanced and forcing the growth in all directions, while hard to see the progress in the interim, is the best way i can care for my plants. The challenge and trial make them immeasurably stronger, sturdier. So, God... if that's what you are doing then, thanks. I trust that though i can't see the computation and plan of how you are growing me and making me new and alive and beautiful and blossoming, that this is indeed your plan, your hope, your work. Help me give myself to it: i want to be beautiful, blossoming, growing. Amen.

To conclude, a quote by indie/folk America's favorite (or at least mine) naturist. Here's to not making immediate sense, to growing, celebration, truth, humility, and newness. Wendell Berry says:

"Every day do something that won't compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing...Love someone who doesn't deserve it...Plant sequoias...Practice resurrection."

I heart:

2007-02-12T02:18:00.000-08:00

Brits. Sir Ian. Laughing.

If you do as well: click: here. Click. Click.

Struggling: Intellegently? Together?

2007-02-12T01:34:00.000-08:00

Villagairosa et. al. did a stupid thing last week (in case you haven't read the headlines). He allowed for a press release of a gang-task-force's list of the top ten most dangerous gangs in LA. If this doesn't strike you initially as a really bad idea, let me help you understand. They just gave ten gangs in LA the hard-ass badge of honor. And they gave every other gang a reason to step it up and prove themselves. Awesome.

In general before this press release and certainly even moreso since, this has been a hot topic in the city. While violent crime, generally, has declined, gang violence has continued to increase. At a council meeting a week and a half ago, i nearly vomited at the presenting police officer's thoughts about how this was being handled. It wasn't just that his "strategy" will necessarily be ineffective but it also violates what i believe are civil rights, promotes racial etc. profiling, and generally feels to have completely lost sight of reality. And there is a whole meta-level struggle going on that is entirely overlooked which, i believe, will mean that the issue of gang violence will be therefore de facto overlooked. (See thoughts on gangs and guerrilla warfare from two weeks ago).

Not that i find this all an insult and assault on our collective intelligence, or anything. No. As i write, however, i feel tempted to edit out my agitation, my anger. I'm not sure it's unjust, but it isn't very humble. Certainly i would make far worse mistakes if i was a policy maker or police chief. Or maybe not. I don't know.

I just know that the #2 most dangerous gang congregates on my street. I know that they claim my corner, along with two others. I know that last night, no doubt in an effort to quickly respond to the list, fifteen-ish police cars sans sirens raced east on Ave 28. And then three very nice cars with very tinted windows, very smoothly sped away from just up the block on my street. Then more police cars. The ghetto bird. Police cars with sirens. Ghetto bird still going. I know that again last week on thursday night (or friday morning) at 1:13am i heard three gun shots go off while describing my neighborhood in writing a letter to a church asking them to be a financial partner with me. I know i shouldn't have looked out the window in either case (this is like urban ministry 101 basic), but i did both times from the bottom corner of the blinds.

***

Today is a neighborhood day. Start the morning praying in my living room with friends for the city. After our hunger for God has been satisfied (at least temporarily) we walk around ending at a place to satisfy our belly hunger: El Huarachito, a place with good nopales, pescado, guacamole, and service. Everything else they sell is good too. After lunch some of us headed over to the park where we run into J's neighbor and his family who play volleyball every week. We passed the ball around and my arms have broken blood vessels.... yeah, it's been awhile. As we walked away i realized how happy the scene made me: a net tied between trees; eight men enjoying the sun, activity, and each other; a homeless man looking on, seemingly grateful for the entertainment; and then a paradigm shift. This time last year i would walk by such games and feel unsafe. Some of that, surely, must be stereotyping. Surely. And yet some of it was based in the practical reality of getting uncomfortable stares, sometimes noises too. It may have even been the same crew. But now that i am a "friend" even if a "friend of a friend" i am safe. When you are on the inside you see people differently. And, to be sure, you are treated differently too.

***

Yesterday i went to a film screening at the L.A. C.A.N. about skid row, or as it is being called by it's residents "central city," issues. It was a work in progress (yes!), but actually really helpful and insightful just the same. It's definitely hard to watch it without feeling compelled to know more and to see what, even if only a little, you can do to help. Some of the formerly homeless people profiled inthe short facilitated a conversation afterward. And one of those men, as i was leaving, noticed i had my arms too full and helped me fill my borrowed nalgene bottle. He wondered if he had met me (and it was sincere not a bad attempt at a pick up line or something), as had two others that afternoon. Generally i get a lot of strangers who think they know me. Really i think it's just the curly hair (and maybe the friendliness) i think that triggers peoples' memory of someone else. Strangely though, being back in the activist community, even in a totally different locale, makes me feel like i know these people too. It was a weird faux-deja-vu experience. As my water bottle tops off he turns to me and somehow in a non-guilt-trip-producing but more warm way invites me to come back and see them and then says:

"join our struggle."

The Effing Mice

2007-02-06T23:55:00.000-08:00

Argh! There are mice in my home. And they won't go away. I used to have dreams about mice when in the midst of transition. They would crawl all over me and nest in my hair and stuff (eat your heart out Freud!), it was totally upsetting. But who needs dreams when you've got reality... sister Lauryn (Hill) says "Fantasy is what people want, but reality is what people need." Now on a macro level i agree but i got to tell you that this situation in dreamland, fantasy-land, or reality is equally not desirable and not necessary. (Sigh).

At once traumatizing and healing, my co-worker showed me this commercial today on youtube. Check out it out if you enjoy well... ridiculous humor and want to share in my pain.

Visitations

2007-01-29T23:48:00.000-08:00

Visitations by old friends, and old demons, old ideas, and the holy ghost... oh, and mice, my house now has mice.

Old friends and new friends and continuous friends gathered together for a good friend's very lovely wedding. And that was concurrently fantastic and overwhelming. I wish i had someones digital photos already so that i could share the love.

The friends were joined by old demons which were long ago cast out of my mental landscape who decided to come back for a visit as well. They were not welcome but, unfortunately, i didn't realize they were knocking on the front door until they had worn me down quite a bit. These old beasts especially like to torment women, and they especially love the wedding medium. It's unwittingly quite a host for their viral efforts. Thank god for friends to help me see in the dark.

Old ideas refreshed. Four episodes of 24 in one day (hey, after a week and a half of non-stop working, wedding helping, and friend-catching-up i needed the permission to vegetate) made me engage with it not just as an entertaining (albeit unrealistic) story but as the sort of patron-saint concept in the American religion right now which is anti-terrorism. But really, terrorism is a form of guerrilla warfare. And guerrilla warfare tactics are deployed on large and small scale everyday--they are power plays by folks who feel powerless, caught under the fist of oppression with nothing to lose. And in that hopeless incubator the ability to create fear and chaos via "terrorist actions" can break down the fabric of a nation enough (largely perhaps as said country chooses to sacrifice it's principals in a delusional effort to control the chaos) that it can make it fall. And as we know all empires do fall, or have anyway. Sometimes though, these tactics, like in my neighborhood are simply a way of reminding the world that they exist. Or maybe even just reminding themselves. Claim ownership armed with the artillery of hand-held paint, so that at least they symbollically own space. The victim of said warfare is irrelevant to the victims of said oppression (in a way), the need for ownership, belonging, existence must be fought for. In the face of such realities (and injustice both real perceived/relative) the greater death for the individual may be the annihilation of self through submission rather than through physical death. Sometimes i think that unless we understand this we will never be able to deconstruct "terrorism," "gang banging" or "un-reconciliation" between any two given individuals, anywhere. It's not a justification of it, but it's understanding of why, and i think that is where we start. See because i don't really think power plays are justifiable. I think they make sense though.

Also, like He tends to, the holy ghost has been hanging around. I see evidence of it in my neighborhhod, i felt reverberations of that in my gut while i was gone. I caught sight of Him during the wedding. I saw the form as i examined the ever changing geography of my heart and mind and as i recounted stories with friends who believe and don't alike. The trinity is hard to grasp perhaps only to the flat human mind however, though i appreciate the strange concept more and more. Perhaps all these things are strange so that we will ask why and in the asking we will understand and know more deeply. Perhaps it is simply a tool to pique curiosity and a device to give insight into the mysteries of God. Perhaps i am making parable out of something much more literal than that. I don't know.

No, i didn't finally get my tattoo (sigh, rar!), no i didn't lose the five pounds i meant to for the wedding, no i didn't get to see a few people i hoped, or get to go into the woods and pray. No, i didn't. All i know for certain is that it was great to see friends, to share a major life moment with one of my best-est friends, to recount the goodness of God, to drink coffee and talk about whenharrymetsally-ish things, to see the ocean, to drive in my "new" car, but mostly... i know for certain that it is really really good to be home. I am at home here in LA and that is very strange. But very good.

" Safe? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. but he's good. He's the King, I tell you. " -- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis)

No, Seriously?

2007-01-17T00:20:00.001-08:00

There is a new show on ABC called "Lincoln Heights." The really strange thing is that although it is filmed here, in my neighborhood and retains some of the qualities of life here, it is completely re-cast as a black neighborhood. The feel of it is more like Inglewood or South Central LA rather than East LA. From the bio of the father character:

Idealistic and ambitious, Eddie Sutton lives by a strong code of honor and duty to his family, his job as a Los Angeles police officer and to his community. So when he gets the chance to buy a house in his old neighborhood, which also happens to be his beat, Eddie thinks it’s a way to give his family a real home and give back to the neighborhood. The transition is harder than he expected, but Eddie is not one to give up without a fight, and there's nothing he'll fight harder for than his family… their hopes, their dreams, and their new life in the old neighborhood. But will he succeed and what will be the price if he doesn't?
Someone also mentioned the show to me last week with the quote: "I don't know whether it is harder to be a cop or a father in Lincoln Heights." True or at least poignant though that is about the LH, as my roommate and i just watched the trailer and then with mouths open declared to each other "i can't exactly explain why, but that really, really bothers me." There were also a lot of "OMG" to be had between us. Hmmm...

Looks Bad, Tastes Great (now with less calories!)

2007-01-07T20:30:00.000-08:00

Three weeks away and then i return to my neighborhood. Oh how i've missed it. Even if upon my first moments i realized it didn't miss me. Or rather the gangs didn't, the ones who tag the wall (etc) opposite my house. Who took a bat to my side rear mirror. At least it wasn't a window, or a tire, or.... Was it just youthful delinquency? But I have to wonder if maybe it was the "I love Lincoln Heights" pin on my dash that incited it. The daily epitaph (yes, i meant to say epitaph) on said wall is first "Lincoln Heights" then "Eastlake" and sometimes "Ave 28" each crossing out the other in squiggled line and writing above or on top in new color their own gang's name. Three of the eight right now think the corner is theirs. But i don't know.

While i was gone (a lot happens in three weeks) there was a shooting across the street. Our neighbor had to run from it, Ali told me, when i mentioned another shady scene that i had just driven by at midnight on Thursday. I really really hate this facet of my life but accepted it as confirmation, again: i can't walk around after dark here at home.

I just had a great weekend with my crew here in Lincoln Heights at a retreat center in the opposite corner of L.A. We went away to think, pray, plan, dream, and learn together. It was sweet. It was sweet to share our love for the place, which we happen to think is God's love first, just one into which we were invited... to see what is so lovely about this place. It is sweet. And i fear that in my writing about it, the lack of aesthetic appeal (looks bad) comes out more. There is much to grieve, yes, but do i often enough tell you, friends, of the beauty?

Because on the other side of the shootings, the drugs, the (oft though not always) gratuitous defacing of property, the fuckyous which light the night with their powerful negative energy are the people. Like Amos who humbly asks me to pray for him every time i see him. The guys down the street who fix up the car and asked my roommate to tutor their child, she being a teacher and all. The kids from the alley. The sweet girls who love to come over and play Scattergories. Can you taste the sweetness even if you can't see it? (The low-cal part in the title, that was just a gimmick to keep you reading... but it worked, didn't it!). I wonder if when you read beyond the lines, do you see the heart; do you see a beloved city?

i'll be damned

2007-01-06T20:30:00.001-08:00

What is it like to believe…in…God? This has been the most interesting question asked of me in the last handful of years and my fumbly response, was something about why or, how i believed. No, I didn’t ask how or why, I asked what does it feel like? What is it like? I respected the question and person enough to want to try to reply and i continued to try, though I knew I had no words only images, feelings, and unwritten poetry.

But as it was a particularly insightful and thoughtful question, it has revisited my mind often.

This weekend, spending time with my team, building a community ethos, dreaming for our neighborhood was one of those visitations by this question, this what does it feel like to believe?

It feels like.... like that. Like how I felt, like how we felt, when we finished our afternoon meeting. Like I’ll be damned [known by it's shorthand of an "IBD moment" thanks to Mike]. And these semi-constant IBD moments are part of what it feels like to believe... in God. It is like having a box seat into the constant unraveling of a delightful mystery.

It’s hard to always see this intangible mystery; it’s hard to order your life on the unknown: giving your control over to a reality of which you only know enough to know that it’s worth the risk of being wrong. That, that is faith I think. It doesn’t feel chaotic, but it sometimes feels scary. When I lose sight of this mysterious reality in which I live and breathe and have my being it gently rubs my eyes. Spit and dirt give vision.

Right now I feel like a child for whom dimensions routinely open up anew. Like an adult who never bores of seeing the matrix coded world again (and again) for the first time, realizing how little I understand of what can and cannot be seen. I am experiencing fairly constant delight in remembering each day about this unfolding plan that has nothing and everything to do with me and of which over somehow I have both little and great control. Paradox is like this: you cannot ally with one side or the other lest you miss it. Walk right through it and remain in the tension. Yup, working on it.

Still Steeping

2007-01-03T00:49:00.000-08:00

I just returned from six overwhelming days in St. Louis. But lest that adjective give a flavor that i don't intend, let me say that i don't really have words yet. But i do know that in my deeply encouraged spirit i want to maintain and noriush the good within me from those days. And so this is of sort an invitation to myself and/or others. I am going to start a new blog, a communal space for people who are processing their lives with God and want to put out some thoughts whether poetry or prose, scanned art, photos, video links, etc. An art space, a processes space. And i think there will be but one rule: no Christianese. Or if a word (i.e. glory) is used, it must be defined... "removing the stained glass from the text," as Ray Bakke would say, since that is a Western juxtaposition. Scripture and life with God is a little more raw than that.

Ummm...

2007-01-02T00:34:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year. That's all.

The People's Holiday

2006-12-25T22:30:00.000-08:00

Christmas eve. San Francisco Christmas dinner (that's what it's called i am told). A partially decorated tree. A cup of coffee laced with chocolate and Schnapps. A walk through lighted neighborhood. Mass. The bulk of it was mostly blah, though i hate to talk about church as though it were a consumer product to be rated. The music was lovely, Christmas hymns, and the priests homily started out strong. He said that we must not forget the real Christmas. The one about God being born in a dirty stable to a teenage mother because there wasn't any room at the Inn. We must not forget, we can not forget because it is the people's holiday. Because the people can relate to this divine being made small and vulnerable that we might know the depth of identification held with us. I didn't hear much of the rest of this spoken Word, partly because he strayed from his intensity and therefore the utter truth of it. Partly because my mind was dancing with this idea, at midnight in a building unfamiliar to me with people i didn't know, thinking and wondering about what parts of my life, of my heart, i have not made room for God. Thinking, tangling thoughts, shadows as i wander in my wondering about the way God desires to bloom in the midst of dark places. To birth hope and beauty, a means and an end to harmony, a companion in the midst of suffering. Like a lotus flower. Like the rose in front of the prison in the Scarlet Letter--not ironically, not even paradoxically... but rather a perfect image, in it's wholeness, of God's character. The Christmas Story may be my favorite poem.

Love and War

2006-12-14T00:00:00.000-08:00

So it's midnight and i'm real tired. Like that bone-deep tired. Tired enough to question the sanity of blogging right now. But... in continuing to reflect on Ephesians and advent and my neighborhood i just, well, i can't seem to help myself. And besides, i have never defended my sanity so think what you will.

Last weekend was the Lincoln Heights Christmas parade. Your standard-ish Christmas Parade. At the end everyone ate lunch together behind the bank of america and pulic officials handed out buttons by the Lincoln Heights Neighborhood Council that read: "I [heart] [insert photo of president Lincoln] Heights." My cohorts and I fell in love with them. So i chatted a bit with he council people and then made clear my real motive... my jonesing for this button to declare my love for this LA district i find myself living in: I love Lincoln Heights.

My roommate told me yesterday that she wore it to Lincoln High School where she teaches English to sophmores and seniors. Her students all told her to put it away and not wear it again. Why? What was the problem with the declaration of her love?

One of the increasingly active Lincoln Heights gangs is "The Lincoln Heights Boys" who a new friend five blocks away told us recently shot at his neighbor four times from the barrel of a shot gun, out a window. His neighbor has no gang affiliation, and besides he posed "they used to be just sort of a 'crew' and they sold some crack, now they are real bad." At least his enlightment answered my questions about all those sirens i had heard the other night. Shot gun. Sirens. Lincoln Heights boys. Right.

Anyway, the problem is that apparently wearing that button, though showing love for the district, means among thugs affiliated with other gangs, not love for my 'hood but rather support of their rival. They warned her, "don't wear it Ms."

Love and war, los angeles style.

The other night i had a disturbing dream. Thanks to Burton, Ronaldo, and my LH family i'm much less shaken up. Dream showcased an all out gang war in my neighborhood and in the midst of it i am arguing with a paramedic who wants to destroy East LA. Nothing good there he says to me. Its all evil. I choke on my tears and the heat of my anger trying to reason with this man, shots flying over head, trying to appeal to his sense of injustice about how this all got started. Trying to persuade him to not just observe the evil but to let his heart be grieved by the people caught up in it... the children with guns. The death of children. I woke up deeply sad, deeply depressed. Not anxious like most of the dreams my psyche shares with me. A week later a friend of my teammate, not knowing of my dream, dreamt of the streets by our home covered in dead bodies. Whether this is the unseen reality of our neighborhood or the seen--both are true and the plausibility of the extremes of our dreams, is at least partially vouched for. I hear sirens in the distance. And not the singing kind. The something bad happened again kind. Last night my other roommate and i discussed the difficult time she is having, each of us crying a bit for her, meanwhile the reality of our neighborhood remained with us, the ghettobird our constant interruption.

It is advent, i wait expectantly, hopefully for eyes to see the ways and the places that God is in my neighborhood. God, in the flesh, not afraid of this place. Grieved [I] heart [Lincoln Heights] for this place.

It is advent i believe in the unchanging goodnews, that was bornagain to a teenage mother in an animal stable in a place that had no space for Him.

It is advent and i trust in the One whose great love alone, and our deepest understanding of it, can end the dividing walls of hostility in my neighborhood.

It is advent and i prepare my heart. I seek to turn from those things that keep me from being a part of this reality, being present, and also those things that keep me from seeing the unseen reality which i may or may not see with the eyes i have as a planetary inhabitant, those things which regardless of my sight are very, very real.

O come, O come Emmanuel.

PS: need help getting ready for the real-ish part of Christmas? Brother Sufjan has all his Christmas CD's free streaming online. Click here. Also, love love love this video of his song "Put the Lights on the Tree." Click here. It's very wierd in a very truthful sort of way, so i think it's fantastic!

Perspective

2006-12-05T08:54:00.000-08:00

I'm a little overwhelmed right now. Wanting to be fully present in this advent* season, a time of preparation and waiting in christendom, but my life feels as dynamic and complicated like a set of spheres spinning under the loose determination of a solar system. It's not, i'm just a little dramatic. But the feeling of moving toward one bright star as opposed to being amidst a collection of planets sounds desirable. My world is just a little busy and there is a lot going on and a lot that has to happen before i start my travel-schedule-o-madness. I suppose i am a nomad still. Who was i kidding?

Dec 16-25..........Sacramento (Christmas, w/ trips to the bay and tahoe)
Dec 25...............Los Angeles
Dec 26-Jan 1 ....St. Louis (Urbana)
Jan 1................ Los Angeles
Jan 2-7.............TBA (Planning Retreat)
Jan 7-18...........Los Angeles
Jan 19-28........San Jose/Santa Cruz (Jean's Wedding)

Mercy! February is sounding delightful.

In the midst of said busy-ness last week and the impending moving horizon came a refreshing shift of perspective. With five other people i spent 25 hours studying the first half of the book of Ephesians (a letter by Paul to the church at Ephesus), which itself is only six chapters or eight standard double-spaced pages. It's a masterful document, the writing (even what feels lost in the translation between cultures can be found if steeped in understanding) is exquisite. We are plumbing it's depths, we are trying to uncover and reveal it's layers--to know it as well as we can. The group of us are going to help teach (pseudo-inductive) this letter with a group of 700 people. This is a psychotic task, it really is. What is moreso is that the last day, the day of the most tiredness, cranky-ness we will be studying (with said 700 people) one of the most controversial bits of scripture in the whole bound anthology known as the bible which is the end of Ephesians. Nothing like gender roles in the early part of the morning on the fifth day of a conference. Jeesh.

I told my roommate about the Ephesians study two days ago. Last night i found this quote by Clive Staples Lewis and read it to her. She said it seemed the perfect summary of what i have been gushing about. And since currently i feel a bit without words to describe the knowledge (beyond knowledge), i thought i would at least share this

"You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body." ---C.S. Lewis
Oh. Right. That said, I hope YOU are well friends, readers, dear souls. May you know the love that surpasses knowledge.

a thousand words are worth a picture

2006-11-20T21:30:00.000-08:00

but i haven't got one.

as i went to sleep saturday night i had a vivid vision. i was a falcon, a hawk, a crow that flew from the spot i had sat on atop a small mesa in keamscanyon. a spot where i had heard the mechanical sound of the wings of a crow fly by, because it was so quiet. a spot where i had meant to reflect and process my life. to pray even, to talk to god. but he talked to me instead. he said that i could just be with him. i asked him if he longed like i did for the moment to be permanent. the moment on a rock outcropping atop the mesa, so present, so alone, so happy. in the vision i flew over the expanse of the reservation, through keams to polacca, up on the mesa, to second mesa, to kykotsmovi, third mesa, and old orabi. i flew back to the deserted road almost to tuba city when we weren't listening to music, when there weren't many cars, and no lights. it was then i said to Aless why don't we pull over, turn off the lights, and sit in the darkness? so we did. we opened the windows, the moon roof and in the crisp air we saw more stars than i ever remember seeing. the milky way and a falling meteor (aka shooting star). although i woke up sore from the hotel bed, my soul felt released in the breathing space of the big desert sky. and i am grateful for the vision.

i just spent three days in the desert. the land makes you feel quiet, humble, without articulation of how you are feeling of what you thinking. nothing seems quite adequate. are a thousands possible to describe the picture of which i have no photograph? i want to post a photo for you. but because of past exploitation the inhabitants have enforced the rule: no photographs. i couldn't and wouldn't want to, out of respect, at the most beautiful place, the place where a piece of my heart is tethered to a chain-link fence meant to retain children from the sheer drop, super-imposed on a nearly thousand-year old village. i left it there six years ago as i watched the katsinas dance praying for rain to water the corn, having walked, per invitation, past the sign that said "no white people." they danced and prayed for rain for the corn of four colors red, blue, yellow and white to remind them to pray for all the peoples of the earth, varied in their colors. i left it there as the sun set and the mesas in the distance turned purple. i left it, where it tore off confused but honored, humbled. and i went into the ceremonial house of clyde's parents where i was stuffed full of fry bread, corn, and piki bread. late to a meeting in order to be just on time with my hopi friends.

hazel told me, welcome home. if you've ever lived here, it's your home, she said. made sure i knew where her house was, come back to visit, huh? what am i doing for thanksgiving she inquired. i smiled, unsure of whether to make note of the awkwardness of a white woman and indian woman discussing thanksgiving plans. it's just small talk, i realized, don't create the awkward racial tension. but i felt welcome, at her insistence. she kept asking me if i remembered this or that. her questions, the village, the old rocks, they made me feel home. at home with the chunk of my heart i had left there on the mesa edge in walpi, arizona.

although it was jarring to transition from wide open spaces and single lane highways to gridlock traffic the moment i hit my home county in pomona. i am back in my other home now, in lincoln heights. here, too, i feel at home. here at home, i try carry my heart in my hands, hoping that as i let it experience and feel, careful not to overprotect it from suffering, that it will have something to offer to my neighbors. hopeful, that he who made my heart, he who wove it together in my mother's womb, will be more evident than me.

and i have found that rather than having a small heart from the bits of it doled out in places it longed to stay, it has grown larger with greater capacity even if it is scarred from the removal. it's kinda like a magic penny.

Near Sedona i reflect on death, life upon seeing side-of-freeway-crosses, discussing Violeta Parra who kills herself after writing "Gracias a la Vida"

2006-11-20T20:59:00.000-08:00

His song has often lured me, seduced me.

Full of darkness, his bed called to some hidden depth within
beyond the knowledge that it be the last place i lay my body.

A permanent, if short-lived love affair it would be, after
years of flirtation filled with submission to
indirect hope and plays on words.

Though i think it is indeed a bed unholy to enter
i feel no sense of disappointment for those who respond
for its invitation is strong and steady, patient--
the choice, nonetheless deeply grievous, truly mournful.

I know the strength of my former desire; their decision is no mystery.
Strikingly, ironically similar, it is, to the desire of
a fiercely alive woman longing for the lover of her youth,
to envelope her in an unconditional yet secure release
to receive the joy that is contentment--to finally if only once

Rest in Peace.

I will almost terminate this randomness with "i am cool."

2006-11-13T21:09:00.000-08:00

Last week i felt grateful, twice, for adversity.

My hands and nail were cut three times, by knife and vegetable peeler preparing food for people i love. They became further "un-feminine" when i re-potted some plants and got dirt stuck under my fingernails. I tried to clean them out and cover them with clear glossy polish, but they are sort of hopeless for now.

I think i just may be okay with giving up on ever becoming proficient in guitar, even though i have an unusually large number of musically gifted friends and would love to join their ranks.

At night, driving north on the 110 from LAX, there is an uncanny plenty of planes in the sky.

Tonight the sun set bright orange on the santa monica horizon and a sail boat was squarely in it's center.

Later this week i will sojourn to the desert. It has been far too long.

It's fall which means there are pippin apples. Pippin are green, but not too tart like granny smith and lighter in color. Just-right tart tempered with just-right amount of sweet. At Vons this afternoon i bought their last pippin apple, sitting atop the waxy red(not)delicious apples for $0.70. I also bought a magazine.

I can't help but wondering when i am at the grocery store if the clerks try to figure a person out based on what they buy if for no other reason than to mediate the monotony. Perhaps they are too tired or bored though to dream and wonder. Or maybe they try to determine the person by their interaction with them--which is as unlikely as it is limited now, I mean since you don't even have to look at them anymore: unload basket, slide card, sign box, click OK. By the time you look up the groceries are already in the bags made of that substance of your choice which the clerk's underling inquired about "paper or plastic, ma'am?"

A new and semi-spontaneous discovery per the circumstantially necessary early-birth-celebration of one Lynnster: Universoul, a self-advertised black circus. Sounds like a reggae festival, to be sure, but actually it is more like B.E.T. meets a small black store-front church meets Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey circus. After experiencing it i firmly believe that may be the way circus is supposed to be done. It was fantastic, even if over-stimulating, and even if i had to suspend the ever-present concern for the life of a circus child, adult, or animal to enjoy it. I felt at home even if racially i was quite out of place which was further punctuated by buying a bottle of water in lieu of cotton candy, soda, or a funnel cake. Neither i nor my companions nor my fellow circus attendees seemed to pay undue notice to that reality. It seems that everyone feels about as comfortable as you feel with yourself in said situations.

In my more common place of displacement some news: it would seem that i have been absorbed by some of my neighbors. They claim me. And i have found that depending on the tone, being called a guera can feel the opposite of alienating, but rather, really, really special.

Three seasons is my very favorite movie. It's always in the top five but i saw it last night for the first time in over a year and so it's back at the tippy-top. I hadn't seen it since i went to Manila last year. Set in Vietnam, the conditions were so similar i felt like i was back with my warm hearted pinoy friends. it was at least the fifth time i saw it, so i thought i wouldn't cry this time. But it never disappoints, the shocking beauty of the film. I realized anew that it is a love story, some romantic and some of an even higher kind. And furthermore i realized a meta-level theme of people fulfilling the dreams of others for said love. I am in love with a fictional character named Hai. It is well done. It is lovely.

As for falling in love wih fictional characters (etc)... it would seem that i have trouble staying in the lines of my emotional, physical, financial, and artistic boundaries. While that can be a good thing for some, it's not entirely positive in all those regards for me. It's pervasively true of me but i am supposing the integrity of my many spheres is an interesting note-to-self. Chris jokes about it, and it is funny, but we both know there is an element of not-so-good to that reality.

I am blessed with an overwhelming quantity of unbelievably cool friends.

And also, I am cool.

Lastly, I like men.

The end.

Id.

2006-11-06T21:41:00.000-08:00

Identify yourself (woman).

I feel like, just this week, i became cognizant of the cultural imperative toward exhaustive and precise self-definition. Blogs, internet "friends groups" (myspace, facebook, zaadz, classmates), dating sites (eharmony, okcupid, match) all offer or demand an egoic profile of you. This electronic generation defines self by attaching various political parties, ideologies, bands, movies, TV shows, books, interests, heroes and and for God's sake even on evite and gmail there are ways to personalize with photo, caption, the responses to a few questions about how you like to party. All too often we define ourselves negatively by what we are not or by what we hate--because for all this self-discovery and definition we still don't know ourselves, and we are not all that aware and actualized. Even as i am solidly in the midst of it, I find the whole process exhausting and kind of... hmmm... without articulation, without words to attach to the feeling.

In tandem, this week i have had countless encounters with myself and my identity or rather those things that at a base level seem to point to some larger categories one could throw me into (that is if one must throw me into a box or two... i'll get out though... "i'll get out of all your boxes"). And as all encounters with oneself it has been enlightening, though in retrospect marked by hefty doses of discomfort similar in feeling to your first glance of daylight after rude awakening via alarm clock. Hullo, wake up. Leaving out my larger life arc characteristics of neurotic free-spirit and clean hippie (which explain a whole lot!), the categories i will explore here are remnants of processing from my week. I am tempted to explore dancer, friend, and relocater as well, having had positive and negative run-ins with myself therein. But I will restrain the tongues of my hands, eager tonight to extrovert in the way in which i am most comfortable which is in writing, and just work on two: italian, christian.

Italiano:
Rather, Sicilian. Two experiences this week left me musing again about the land that my paternal family hails from, the land always clarified as Sicily (more than half-jokingly) if i ever mistakenly generalized my heritage to the Iarger motherland.

The first was at Kaiser in Glendale and it involves a flirtatious old man. I actually have a hard time flirting (even when i am interested in someone)... except with babies and old people... and then you can see my sassy femme heart come out in full bloom. I had my blood drawn, and for the first time in a year was not left significantly bruised in the process. But while in the lab waiting to be called in i saw a gentleman, maybe mid-late 70's, wheeled in, his face almost completely purple. The mind wanders, imagines: what great height he fell from or what wild disease he might have that could've caused such pervasive discoloration. I hear him joking with the receptionist, telling her a fable about how it happened, laughing heartily and then remarking to said receptionist about what a flirt he is. I am highly amused.

Blood drawn i walk upstairs to the nurse's clinic to get a shot and there is my muse. I remark to him (figuring that it would less rude to just initiate conversation with him since my animal-human nature would not be able to not stare at his blue-black, purple face) that i must be following him around, huh? So he retorrs by telling the same fable he told the receptionist in the lab about going to church and trying to help a woman by moving a part of her dress that had become tucked into itself, leaving her exposed. She turned around and hit him in the eye and when he tried to explain... the other eye. He laughs at himself. I tell him, from a large grin, that i am very trusting but that i don't think he's telling me the truth, "are you?" Well, he declares, "i am a big flirt, i'm an old Sicilian, and i'm a big flirt." "Oh," i remark to him, not loudly enough as his attendant has to repeat it for him "I am too, i'm Sicilian." We exchange last names to vet this fact. He proceeds to start speaking in Italian while i study the face behind the mask of bruising and find i can see what i hadn't seen before of his mediterranean look. I tell him i don't speak Italian and so he tells me "I told you that you are a beautiful Italian girl." He reminds me he is a flirt and repeats that i am beautiful. I smile big for him, say thank you, and go in to get my B-12 shot to pump up my red-blood cells and keep me well.

The second was for a work event, a sort of job fair for Christians... and by that i mean a missions fair. It was actually a hard place for me to be. I met some really sweet folks, people with whom i am glad to be family--people who see the world through a hopelessly beautiful and profound corrective lens. But with others i found myself grimacing to learn that we share the identity monicker of Christian. Aye. This whole inner dialogue and conflict is always more than a little emotionally and psychotically taxing. However, one of the organizations was for a group doing work in Italy. And although overall i found myself uneasy in that "i don't want to be family with you" huffy immaturity that i am prey to with the 50-something-american-spokesman he did have a southern Italian man with him who when he saw my name tag introduced himself as Daniele and then enthusiastically pronounced my last name for me Ai-ya-lo. It was such a rich moment. I then watched him do a once over noticing my more scandinavian looing white-gal looks and finally he seemed to settle (i saw in his face) that truly i could be (at least distantly) Sicilian. He smiled warmly, shook my hand and then we parted ways. So rarely is my name pronounced so beautifully, in fact it is more often so severely mangled that it sounds downright, well, un-beautiful. Yes, distant though my heritage is from me, when i connect to it, when it connects to me, i know it is in fact me, i know because because i feel home.

Anecdotally, on heritage and ethnic identity, i was giving my roommate the 30-second introduction to my family history trying to explain that i am the product of clean and productive though nonetheless hippie parents who were the product of four (count 'em) alcoholics. On dad's side the catholic-ish, ex-Mafia, boot-legging, shady in a Godfather sorta way alcoholics. On mom's side the jack Mormon, coal-mining, casino-loving sort who were the product of, yes, bonafide polygamist Mormons. A little creepy (or a lot), i know. Feeling uncomfortable with having revealed that last shady and more stigmatized (among the shades of it already described) detail, i recanted and said... "well, i mean actually there was really just one polygamist that i know of," feeling that somehow better. But she laughed and said "well, you know, it only takes one to make a family legacy." Ah, unfortunately, she is right. It only takes one. Ladies and gentleman, my legacy.

Christian:
It was a tough week to be a Christian: personally because of said missions fair where i wo-manned a booth to tell students about Servant Partners; nationally with the pastor-scandal-o'-the-year. While i never really know within which genre or brand of the body i feel like i fit in, i most often go to evangelical churches so i claim E. I always wonder what it would look like to superimpose Mysticism and Anabaptisim over the top of mainstream Evangelicalism and i wonder if it would feel like home as much as i imagine it to. Doubtful. Yet i continue to long, to dream.

This week in America a major evangelical leader, out of Colorado Springs (to be sure a true font of ultra-conservative evangelical Christianity) of all places, was exposed for having a double life. Meth, which he , bought but didn't use. A prostitute, with whom he shared "massage" but no sex. One of the icons of evil to such conservative Christians, Bill Clinton, used an almost identical approach. Is it irony or just the natural response to exposure... it's kind of like a sniveling "but, but, but." Furthermore, i don't believe it. Come on now. He has as time has gone on admited to more and more: first he didn't know him, then he knew him but just bought meth and massage, and now he is admitting to a dark side, a deep decietful and broken part of himself, as he refers to it. At least from what i have read thus far his church is handling things pretty well all complexity considered. Not condemning him (because is there not mercy for us all, is there not room at the table), but also not pretending like nothing happened or like everything is all-good. But the situation begs larger questions about evangelical America, beliefs, pastorship, repression, health, and politics. Doesn't it?

I find myself wanting to hide my "Hello, I am a Christian" name tag under my favorite shirt: black, long sleeves, collared, with buttons to adjust the amount of skin that is appropriate to show. Rather than get defensive or more intense in our/their beliefs my prayer, my request to God, is that we believers would use this haggard opportunity to take a good look at ourselves and to knock-it-off with our hater-tendencies.

The missions fair was hard. I think it is great to share or discuss or extrovert or whatever about God, about Jesus and yet it is so maddening and saddening to me to see how and why some Christians are sharing their faith. The sort of negative definition stuff. And then there is tract distribution. Tracts, for those who don't know, are the "gospel message" made into cartoon or short-story format wherein the end is always the main character realized that they are hopelessly lost, sinful, and awful and then is led by another cartoon friend to pray to Jesus a very formulaic prayer about said "sinful nature" wherein they are eternally saved from the weeping and nashing of teeth that is called hell. Very fire and brimstone. Very disturbing. I am tempted to put a link so that you can view some of said tracts, or at least grasp what i am talking about, but i find them so utterly destructive that whether you are Christian or you are not, i feel like they can only do harm. Personally i do not think that the good news, the character and heart of God is something that can or should be reduced to a tract for the sake of mass production and distribution to "the lost." I spent about an hour after the missions fair looking at this one particular brand of them online, and walked away so destroyed and depressed by them that i wondered how i could call myself a Christian.

I'll tell you how.

On Saturday night, my organization had a community night... a gathering for staff, interns, supporters, and friends of Servant Partners. My two bosses spoke for a bit, our executive director spoke for a bit, and then our board chair Dr. Linthicum, shared for a bit. Dr. Linthicum is a pastor, a community organizer, an older gentleman with more wisdom, honesty, wit, and story telling know-how than just about anyone i have had the pleasure of meeting in person.

He gave us a benediction as we left. A benediction is a way that many Christians end services, meetings, etc.--it is a closing blessing, a prayer for guidance for the community as they leave each other's company. And in this case his prayer was spoken to us, and he was trying to help us protect the true meaning and purpose and calling of our faith, he was asking God to guide us to remind us who we really were. He reminded us that claiming the name of Christian and living as the faithful remnant of Christ are different things. To love the things that God loves--and not those negative self-definition things (we don't believe this, we don't like that, we think this is wrong)--and to walk in that way. And if the remnant will remain faithful, God will bring His glory back to the city (glory is a very Christianese word, therefore see also presence, beauty, prosperity, blessing, honor, distinction, justice, bliss, gratification, contentment, happiness, shalom). I'm not sure that my inadequate synopsis sums up why i needed this benediction so much and how it restored me to my heritage and faith or if it just sounds sort of,well, typical. Suffice it to say, it wasn't typical. It was beautiful. And i decided that i didn't want to hide my name tag, my identity as a Christian, marred though it is.

(And um, blushing, I think i'm drinking what they're selling... how's that for exhaustive self-definition).

Juxtaposition

2006-11-02T18:03:00.000-08:00

Halloween, is not, my favorite holiday.

But my neighborhood Loves, with an intentional capital L, Halloween. So, Ali and I to be truly incarnational had fifteen little child-slaves (we fed them, don't worry) over on Sunday to help us decorate, bake cookies, and dance around the kitchen with wooden spoons. We had an absolute riot with Ali's students and some friends of ours from the alley where we used to live. I love these kids, they make me feel positively melty.

Carving, gutting pumpkins (C for whom this was her first time says to me "i actually kind of like the way it feels, you know?"), discussing how-to-bake-pumpkin seeds... creating faces from a gourd... this all combines to make an organic good time. One of the Jack's (O-lantern) was, apparently, "shot" (as the 15-year-old carver made a shot-gun sized bullet hole in his head and came back at some point on Monday and smeared fake red-blood around it). We didn't use the safe carving knifes... and not because we needed street-cred. more just because we couldn't find them anywhere. Thank you God for no accidental incisions!

Fifteen faces stared out of our fence back lit by apple-cinnamon candles, surrounded by spider webs, orange lites, and spiders were meant to welcome outsiders in. But no one would come up to our door, I in my thrown-together gypsy costume and Ali a beatniky sort. Mari told me, it's because this part is too gansta, they don't know us, they will be too afraid. And though we had two haunted houses on our block, including us and them there were only four houses giving out candy. "Stand on the porch" she suggested. S o we did, bowls of candy in hand and invited each trick-or-treater up. Our old neighbors stopped by with some friends of ours. We checked out the haunted house two doors down. I definitely screamed the whole time, I'm not jumpy but this isn't a regulated haunted house--people grab you and chase you, the whole bit. Little N and i clutched onto each other for dear life: mutual dependence.

The preparation and day of Halloween were very joyful, to use an overspoken though poignant word. They were reminders of why i am here and how much i love this neighborhood and it's people, broken though it is.

Joy not in spite of the gunshot that woke me up that Sunday morning at 5am, joy not in spite of the tagging across the street "Vivo LH" and next to it the start to "F@ck h" that was never finished, joy not in spite of the fact that i don't like Halloween so much and loathe the idea of dressing up, and certainly not joy because of it.

Yet there it is right next to the pain, the sorrow, the brokenness... not so much juxtaposed, just right there side-by-side.

i... don't know.

2006-10-24T17:10:00.000-07:00

A co-worker reminded me that that is perhaps the most important statement we can make. It's honest. And it's usually the case.

I wear a ring on my finger, my engagement or wedding ring finger no less. It has been a source of great mystery to people around me, though few ask why. Although those who do hear about the dream, the deliberation, and the decision. It has been the source of interesting inquiries from others, 95% of the time, males. But for me, it has been a source of great strength for the not-quite-two-years it has rented a small portion of finger skin from me.

"Who's your man" will ask a curious (hmmm...) new male friend.
"Is that man repellent?" someone will half-jokingly inquire.
"Are you..." another starts but never finishes the word "married."

The ring tells a story about faith and redemption, and not my faith exactly. Easy to forget is that almost secondary to the question "do you believe in God" is the reality that "God believes in you." And with no fear to be humiliated on my behalf, He wanted me to feel secure in that faith, His in me. And that graciousness produces a deeper faith than a sterile belief ever could, for me.

My friend SCV bought this ring for me after a long shared evening of sorrow, mine: she and JMS shared mine with me. Rather "here," she said, "is $100," her mother had given it to her as a gift to buy something she wanted. She wanted to buy me a ring because i said "i feel like i need to mark the occasion." A statement of commitment, not just mine to the divine, but the divine to me. It looks nothing like your standard engagement or wedding ring, much simpler, more folky. But there it is on my finger--every day that i remember it, anyway.

There is a lot i don't know about myself. Even more do i not know about God. And i carry my ignorance in the hand with the ring on it. Because though there are quite a few things of which i am unsure, there is one i am sure of. Inaudible, inarticulate though it is. I'd tell you more but some groanings are too deep for words.

Not a Psyco Hose Beast...

2006-10-17T00:02:00.000-07:00

To your right there, a definition from Urban Dictionary.com for you Wayne's World cultural illiterates. (It's okay, i still love you). Psyco Hose Beast (PHB).

We were looking for bridesmaid dresses online, a month or so ago at Jeannie's place, after a day of fluorescent lights, plentiful mirrors, beads, lace, silk, gorganza, white fabrics, veils, ribbons, and saleswomen--oh my. And i casually mentioned to Tony (her fiance) about my fear of looking like a psycho hose beast. Especially after searching through online archives for over an hour and finding that there are 1,000 shades of ugly that one can choose for a horrifying dress complete with bows. "What's a psy-co hose beast?" he inquired.

Well the problem was i didn't have a definition for him, though i knew I was making some vague reference to Wayne's World. The comment was made by Wayne about Stacy, his ex, the gal who ran her bike into a car, wore a neclace that said "Wayne," and who for his birthday gave him a gun rack (even though he didn't "have a gun, let alone many guns which would necessitate a gun rack"). So instead of a definition, i showed Tony the site-of-all-sites on ugly bridesmaid dresses which is Uglydresses.com (subtitled Bridesmaid Dresses from Hell). "See" i told him, hoping the terror i was feeling would register and that he would grasp it in an object-defintion-sort-of-way. He didn't and moreover, he didn't think they were that bad. So i counted my blessings that he would have no say in the manner, lest i wind up in something as tasteful as the "Teal Green Camaro Dress." Ack!

There is good news. One is that i am not a pyscho hose beast because, i think, actually, using the definition above... it is difficult to look like one, you either are or you aren't. My bad on that usage. Eh, em.

The even better good news though is that Jeannie does have good taste and we finally picked out the dresses after her bridal shower on Saturday afternoon, and because they didn't have my size in stock (argh!) we are banking that the correct size will not produce the bust spillage that the size too small did on me. The shower was lovely, thanks in large part to one very talented and lovely Martha Stewart McGyver.

Of particular note was that we prayed for Jeannie and while doing that one woman said something so beautiful that my mind has since continued to savor it and follow it's voice down many pronged and unknown paths. she prayed that Jeannie would know that some transitions aren't bad and so not to be afraid for this new season of her life. She said that some things are un-ashamedly good.

Here, here. I will indeed, drink to that.