Saturday, November 18, 2006
Monday, November 13, 2006
not sure what I said really.
It's the two-year anniversary of imagination. Julie would understand. Although her November was the pits. Mine...that was when I bought a new journal. That was when I would peruse books at Borders and drink coffee in the evening. That was the month of East of Eden and All the Kings Men. It was a month of tights and falling in love. It was a month of emo British lyrics and rearranging my bedroom. And I haven't thought about it in awhile.
Granted, there were lots of screwed up things then. And I was pretty absorbed in myself and teenage ennui and things of that nature. But there was something there. Something lovely though I'm not sure how real it was. Though it felt real.
I'm too serious in college. I think too much about what the future holds. I worry. Conversations revolve around schoolwork and scheduling and next semester...that's just the way things roll. Campus organizations and endless paths of brick...it's like a plastic organism.
I'm complaining, I know. I'm trying to reclaim something I lost upon coming to college...even though I've gained so much more. Youth is fleeting, beauty if fleeting, success is fleeting. I wish I could see things through the eyes of a centenarian.
In the meantime, I will wear tights. I will look outside of the library window at the flaming orange leaves and wait for them to fall. And I will pray...pray that God will help me reconcile this longing for shomething differnet with contentment in the here and now. My thoughts aren't the most glorifying at this moment, and it makes me wonder if this blog post has any purpose whatsoever. I don't think I've said anything.
Oh well. Who really does?
I need to just go pray.
Granted, there were lots of screwed up things then. And I was pretty absorbed in myself and teenage ennui and things of that nature. But there was something there. Something lovely though I'm not sure how real it was. Though it felt real.
I'm too serious in college. I think too much about what the future holds. I worry. Conversations revolve around schoolwork and scheduling and next semester...that's just the way things roll. Campus organizations and endless paths of brick...it's like a plastic organism.
I'm complaining, I know. I'm trying to reclaim something I lost upon coming to college...even though I've gained so much more. Youth is fleeting, beauty if fleeting, success is fleeting. I wish I could see things through the eyes of a centenarian.
In the meantime, I will wear tights. I will look outside of the library window at the flaming orange leaves and wait for them to fall. And I will pray...pray that God will help me reconcile this longing for shomething differnet with contentment in the here and now. My thoughts aren't the most glorifying at this moment, and it makes me wonder if this blog post has any purpose whatsoever. I don't think I've said anything.
Oh well. Who really does?
I need to just go pray.
on and on and on and on and on and on and on...
I can remember that time in my life where all I could do, all I could feel, all I could think about was the writing that was inside me, welling up until I just had to spit it out on paper. Not on a computer, but in my leather-bound journal, my cuaderno cafecito. Spanish thoughts and impressions, Spanish words and ideas, Spanish longings and dissatsifaction with the white American complacency. I would sit at the kitchen table and let the summer light pour through the windows as I poured over blank pages and watched them fill themselves...magically, naturally. Cinco, seis, diez paginas de ideas, de pensar y crear y sentirme.
I miss that time.
Something wonderful happens to you when you return from a foreign country. Something wonderful and unbearble. Unbearable because you can't stand anything that you used to like...you can't enjoy television or music, you can't stand the studying or the saturday football games. You can't stand the toilet paper and the low-fat salad dressing. You can't even stand the air-conditioning. Your thoughts are absorbed by the way things were in that other land that now feels more like home than this foreign place. You miss the Spanish and the frijoles con arroz or the tortilla de patatas. You miss the walking, the heat, the tiredness, because those feel more real than this. But it's wonderful, coming back, not because you can cherish all those American things again and started consuming, but because you realize the ephimeral nature of things. That what you needed before wasn't really necessary, that the world you had erected and that society had deemed "normal" for you really could be questioned, challenged, destroyed. That you hide yourself in structure, that you hide yourself in the television channels, that you hide yourself in the english language, that you hide yourself in the american dream. Go to high school, graduate with honors, go to college, get a degree, get married, have kids, be successful. Is that order necessary? These things are gifts from God, yes, but there is a whole other side to life and living.
I hate that I never chose to go to college. It was just assumed. I hate that I feel compelled to study, that I feel compelled to go to class. It's like a neurosis. I am itching to get out. I would like for those things to be a conscious choice...I would like to have a firmer idea of why I'm here...some clarity. I'm just here because I'm not sure how to get to the other places I'd like to be. Peru, Chile, Mexico, Costa Rica. And I want to be thankful for this, for college...so many people out there don't get this opportunity. But right now...I just want out. Granted, I want to come back, but I want to see what it's like for the majority of humanity...out there working, in poverty, in broken governments, but in family and community. I don't want to observe from the academic standpoint; I want to experience it first-hand. I want to not have a plan. I'm sick of plans.
Basta ya! Basta ya, el facebook y los celulares y el internet. basta ya, todo que uso en mi vida diaria.
to eschew technology, to eschew that net of safety that hides human rationality and morality. C Wright Mills highlights it...
Stream-of-conscious days of shadows and highlights, of highlights and highlighters, of running away into the trees and consuming too much sugar, of wanting more but settling for too little and losing myself to that fake world of safe structure and structured safety. And I don't know where I'm going, and I don't know where I'm going...
I miss that time.
Something wonderful happens to you when you return from a foreign country. Something wonderful and unbearble. Unbearable because you can't stand anything that you used to like...you can't enjoy television or music, you can't stand the studying or the saturday football games. You can't stand the toilet paper and the low-fat salad dressing. You can't even stand the air-conditioning. Your thoughts are absorbed by the way things were in that other land that now feels more like home than this foreign place. You miss the Spanish and the frijoles con arroz or the tortilla de patatas. You miss the walking, the heat, the tiredness, because those feel more real than this. But it's wonderful, coming back, not because you can cherish all those American things again and started consuming, but because you realize the ephimeral nature of things. That what you needed before wasn't really necessary, that the world you had erected and that society had deemed "normal" for you really could be questioned, challenged, destroyed. That you hide yourself in structure, that you hide yourself in the television channels, that you hide yourself in the english language, that you hide yourself in the american dream. Go to high school, graduate with honors, go to college, get a degree, get married, have kids, be successful. Is that order necessary? These things are gifts from God, yes, but there is a whole other side to life and living.
I hate that I never chose to go to college. It was just assumed. I hate that I feel compelled to study, that I feel compelled to go to class. It's like a neurosis. I am itching to get out. I would like for those things to be a conscious choice...I would like to have a firmer idea of why I'm here...some clarity. I'm just here because I'm not sure how to get to the other places I'd like to be. Peru, Chile, Mexico, Costa Rica. And I want to be thankful for this, for college...so many people out there don't get this opportunity. But right now...I just want out. Granted, I want to come back, but I want to see what it's like for the majority of humanity...out there working, in poverty, in broken governments, but in family and community. I don't want to observe from the academic standpoint; I want to experience it first-hand. I want to not have a plan. I'm sick of plans.
Basta ya! Basta ya, el facebook y los celulares y el internet. basta ya, todo que uso en mi vida diaria.
to eschew technology, to eschew that net of safety that hides human rationality and morality. C Wright Mills highlights it...
"In our time, must we not face the possibility that the human mind as a social fact might be deteriorating in quality and cultural level, and yet not many would notice it because of the overwheming accumulation of technological gadgets? Is not that one meanning of human alientation? Of the absence of any free role for reason in human affairs? The accumulation of gadgets hides these meanings: Those who use these devices do not understand them; those who invent thme do not understand much else."
Stream-of-conscious days of shadows and highlights, of highlights and highlighters, of running away into the trees and consuming too much sugar, of wanting more but settling for too little and losing myself to that fake world of safe structure and structured safety. And I don't know where I'm going, and I don't know where I'm going...
Thursday, September 28, 2006
inspiration and perspiration
Where is the line between inspiration and perspiration? Both come from inside. Both involve evaluating your surroundings and reacting accordingly (not necessarily logically). I have not been inspired to write. Or is it that I have not perspired enough in my endeavors, or lack thereof.
Both are extremely valuable, and both are extremely hard to come by.
But how long does insipration, sweet inspiration, last once it comes? A week, a day, a minute?
Inspiration does not always come first.
I guess that's why I'm writing. Because I want inspiration and figure that, in my writing, it will come.
And now I will write, getting over the fact that I can't flesh out this idea much more because I just need to write.
It's been a bumpy month, but I can't conceive of any better way to spend my weekend than in the mountains with my brothers and sisters in Christ. In ways I feel as though the month has climaxed with a bout of despair and is now reaching the dénouement of sorts. Conference will be a time to simply BE...a time to rest in Christ and Christian fellowship. My soul has been aching for this...this break not so much from school but from my racing mind and swirling fears. I was going to write about the latter, but I've changed my mind and am going to let it go...I've beat the subject to death, I've psychoanalyzed and overanalyzed and overcried and overfelt everything...and...it's...fragmenting...scattering. Screw how I feel and how I think and what I feel and what I think, because I know full well that my emotions are fickle. a whisper...Courtney, all that matters is that YOU are the bride of Christ, and that He not only knows about all your crap but has DIED for it and FORGIVEN it and has promised to provide. It's not dependent on how confident I am with photography or how well I "reach out" to other people or how productive I've been or how little sleep I've gotten because I'm so busy "doing God's work." and if I don't pray or read the Bible for a day, God will not love me any less, because He sees me AS CHRIST! Christ is in me and I am in him, and He will meet me in my despair or my frustration or my intense doubts about my 'performance' in this walk of life.
I thank God that it is not up to my strength. I thank God that He won't let any of these freaking idols that I am running after become my rock. I thank God for my troubles, even for my troubled mind...because it leads me back to Him. Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love...He is able.
Both are extremely valuable, and both are extremely hard to come by.
But how long does insipration, sweet inspiration, last once it comes? A week, a day, a minute?
Inspiration does not always come first.
I guess that's why I'm writing. Because I want inspiration and figure that, in my writing, it will come.
And now I will write, getting over the fact that I can't flesh out this idea much more because I just need to write.
It's been a bumpy month, but I can't conceive of any better way to spend my weekend than in the mountains with my brothers and sisters in Christ. In ways I feel as though the month has climaxed with a bout of despair and is now reaching the dénouement of sorts. Conference will be a time to simply BE...a time to rest in Christ and Christian fellowship. My soul has been aching for this...this break not so much from school but from my racing mind and swirling fears. I was going to write about the latter, but I've changed my mind and am going to let it go...I've beat the subject to death, I've psychoanalyzed and overanalyzed and overcried and overfelt everything...and...it's...fragmenting...scattering. Screw how I feel and how I think and what I feel and what I think, because I know full well that my emotions are fickle. a whisper...Courtney, all that matters is that YOU are the bride of Christ, and that He not only knows about all your crap but has DIED for it and FORGIVEN it and has promised to provide. It's not dependent on how confident I am with photography or how well I "reach out" to other people or how productive I've been or how little sleep I've gotten because I'm so busy "doing God's work." and if I don't pray or read the Bible for a day, God will not love me any less, because He sees me AS CHRIST! Christ is in me and I am in him, and He will meet me in my despair or my frustration or my intense doubts about my 'performance' in this walk of life.
Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. 3It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.
I thank God that it is not up to my strength. I thank God that He won't let any of these freaking idols that I am running after become my rock. I thank God for my troubles, even for my troubled mind...because it leads me back to Him. Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love...He is able.
inspiration and perspiration
Where is the line between inspiration and perspiration? Both come from inside. Both involve evaluating your surroundings and reacting accordingly (not necessarily logically). I have not been inspired to write. Or is it that I have not perspired enough in my endeavors, or lack thereof.
Both are extremely valuable, and both are extremely hard to come by.
But how long does insipration, sweet inspiration, last once it comes? A week, a day, a minute?
Inspiration does not always come first.
I guess that's why I'm writing. Because I want inspiration and figure that, in my writing, it will come.
And now I will write, getting over the fact that I can't flesh out this idea much more because I just need to write.
It's been a bumpy month, but I can't conceive of any better way to spend my weekend than in the mountains with my brothers and sisters in Christ. In ways I feel as though the month has climaxed with a bout of despair and is now reaching the dénouement of sorts. Conference will be a time to simply BE...a time to rest in Christ and Christian fellowship. My soul has been aching for this...this break not so much from school but from my racing mind and swirling fears. I was going to write about the latter, but I've changed my mind and am going to let it go...I've beat the subject to death, I've psychoanalyzed and overanalyzed and overcried and overfelt everything...and...it's...fragmenting...scattering. Screw how I feel and how I think and what I feel and what I think, because I know full well that my emotions are fickle. a whisper...Courtney, all that matters is that YOU are the bride of Christ, and that He not only knows about all your crap but has DIED for it and FORGIVEN it and has promised to provide. It's not dependent on how confident I am with photography or how well I "reach out" to other people or how productive I've been or how little sleep I've gotten because I'm so busy "doing God's work." and if I don't pray or read the Bible for a day, God will not love me any less, because He sees me AS CHRIST! Christ is in me and I am in him, and He will meet me in my despair or my frustration or my intense doubts about my 'performance' in this walk of life.
I thank God that it is not up to my strength. I thank God that He won't let any of these freaking idols that I am running after become my rock. I thank God for my troubles, even for my troubled mind...because it leads me back to Him. Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love...He is able.
Both are extremely valuable, and both are extremely hard to come by.
But how long does insipration, sweet inspiration, last once it comes? A week, a day, a minute?
Inspiration does not always come first.
I guess that's why I'm writing. Because I want inspiration and figure that, in my writing, it will come.
And now I will write, getting over the fact that I can't flesh out this idea much more because I just need to write.
It's been a bumpy month, but I can't conceive of any better way to spend my weekend than in the mountains with my brothers and sisters in Christ. In ways I feel as though the month has climaxed with a bout of despair and is now reaching the dénouement of sorts. Conference will be a time to simply BE...a time to rest in Christ and Christian fellowship. My soul has been aching for this...this break not so much from school but from my racing mind and swirling fears. I was going to write about the latter, but I've changed my mind and am going to let it go...I've beat the subject to death, I've psychoanalyzed and overanalyzed and overcried and overfelt everything...and...it's...fragmenting...scattering. Screw how I feel and how I think and what I feel and what I think, because I know full well that my emotions are fickle. a whisper...Courtney, all that matters is that YOU are the bride of Christ, and that He not only knows about all your crap but has DIED for it and FORGIVEN it and has promised to provide. It's not dependent on how confident I am with photography or how well I "reach out" to other people or how productive I've been or how little sleep I've gotten because I'm so busy "doing God's work." and if I don't pray or read the Bible for a day, God will not love me any less, because He sees me AS CHRIST! Christ is in me and I am in him, and He will meet me in my despair or my frustration or my intense doubts about my 'performance' in this walk of life.
Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. 3It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.
I thank God that it is not up to my strength. I thank God that He won't let any of these freaking idols that I am running after become my rock. I thank God for my troubles, even for my troubled mind...because it leads me back to Him. Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love...He is able.
Saturday, September 02, 2006
can't think of an adequate title
We are like well dressed hobos.
That's just a little insight from Ju. I like it.
Anyways, Week Two of Year Two of my Formal Education has ended, and it was so-so. Here are some of the good things that happened:
1. it rained. actually, it poured, thanks to oncoming Hurricane Ernesto. I was coming from my South American Culture class and realized that if I waited for the rain to let up, I would be in Phillips Hall for the next six hours, and that if I didn't wait I would get the oppportunity to play in the rain. It's really one of those special moments life throws at you that can cause some people to grumble, some people to despair, others to avoid the outdoors, and others to joyfully rejoice. I bolted outside without my shoes on, threw my head back, and let the rain pour down my face. I didn't run, but walked calmly, confidently, down campus. I felt like I was in a photograph with the background blurred grey from drag shutter, my body frozen in time.
2. I partook in a wonderful two-hour theological discussion about suffering after church on Sunday. I met three freshmen and two transfer students and one graduate med. student. We ate artichoke pizza.
3. Carolyn and I discovered the candy machines in Old East.
4. Carolyn introduced me to Seinfeld, the world's best TV show (after that 70's show, of course). Actually, we spent a whole evening together, which was one of the best evenings i've had all year. We worked out, took hot showers together (not in the same shower, haha), ate Pita Pit for dinner, watched Seinfeld, listened to 90's music, and pretty much enjoyed one another's company for eight hours straight. I was totally wired...it was one of those moments where you let your guard down completely and all inhibitions melt into oblilvion. I haven't laughed so hard since the Morehead City trip with Joe and Colleen.
5. I had my best day ever of shooting at the DTH. Three pictures published in one day!
6. I got to speak Spanish with a Mexican worker.
7. My U.S. History professor announced in his very British accent that his last name was "Quigley."
8. I got three free meals in two days. Yay for friends with meal plans and professors with cash.
9. I reconnected with Galen and Ricky and Natalie and other photo people that I am sometimes intimidated by. My J480 class is a wondeful mix of photographers...a 31 year old and some pretty talented undergrads. It's like a family....aww.
10. Writing this blog. I have missed writing so much that I have forgotten about how much I love it.
Some of the bad things that happened this week:
1. Doubts. Lots and lots of doubts. It's satan's way of creeping into my being and preventing me from giving my all to anything...whether it be relationships, photojournalism, my calling, sleep.
2. I stepped on my contact lens this morning.
3. My car wouldn't start...again. Which leads to number four.
4. I have to wake up in five hours to drive my car to Wake Forest for an appointment with the dealer.
5. I didn't pray very much or spend time in the Word. GAH. I know God's work in my life and in other people's lives isn't dependent on my actions, but I nonetheless have a responsibility that I am failing to carry out. And it hurts me that I can get so busy and bogged down with worry that I forget or rationalize my way out of prayer. I really miss God and those quiet times that marked the summer. the type of quiet times that would completely transform my state of mind or mood. pray that I can pray, basically. hopefully i'll utilize the long weekend accordingly...
I guess that's it. I don't want to think of other lowpoints.
The week was grey. So-so. But mostly grey from the rain. But still good. I like rain, remember?
Anyways, I think it's really cool that God has made people so DIFFERENTLY and with such care--esmero, in spanish--and beauty. I look at my friend Matt and amazed that his brain is so darn different than mine...that he is so rational and could love something like economics and business with such passion and dedication. I look at my friend Laura and marvel that God could create someone who has such a big heart and caring nature. Then I think of myself, and praise Him that he made me this way (even though at many points during the week I was angry/annoyed with his handiwork). I learn experientially and emotionally...I like that I am so emotional and that I feel things so deeply and crave experience. It used to be a vice, especially my senior year of high school, but when balanced it really edifies things. Especially with photojournalism. I don't learn by memorizing or by regurgitating or by rationalizing. I learn by images, really and think in images. fragments. I see things in my head...not concrete images, mind you. more like colors and hues that i translate into words and feelings. it comes out in my writing, I think, and this is why i have such a hard time conversing with people. I am a writer and an artist, not a talker and an arguer. And it can be so frustrating, but deep down...when i am doing those things that God created me to do, thinking the way he created me to think, writing the way he created me to write...I am so unbelievably in love with the way I am and the fact that God chose to make me that way. More power to Him!
And it's cool that God is teaching me how to be those things I'm not...how to listen better, how to communiate better, how to rest better.
I'll save my photojournalism ponderings for another entry.
Por ahora, tengo que acostarme. Descanso, descanso dulce, descanso.
That's just a little insight from Ju. I like it.
Anyways, Week Two of Year Two of my Formal Education has ended, and it was so-so. Here are some of the good things that happened:
1. it rained. actually, it poured, thanks to oncoming Hurricane Ernesto. I was coming from my South American Culture class and realized that if I waited for the rain to let up, I would be in Phillips Hall for the next six hours, and that if I didn't wait I would get the oppportunity to play in the rain. It's really one of those special moments life throws at you that can cause some people to grumble, some people to despair, others to avoid the outdoors, and others to joyfully rejoice. I bolted outside without my shoes on, threw my head back, and let the rain pour down my face. I didn't run, but walked calmly, confidently, down campus. I felt like I was in a photograph with the background blurred grey from drag shutter, my body frozen in time.
2. I partook in a wonderful two-hour theological discussion about suffering after church on Sunday. I met three freshmen and two transfer students and one graduate med. student. We ate artichoke pizza.
3. Carolyn and I discovered the candy machines in Old East.
4. Carolyn introduced me to Seinfeld, the world's best TV show (after that 70's show, of course). Actually, we spent a whole evening together, which was one of the best evenings i've had all year. We worked out, took hot showers together (not in the same shower, haha), ate Pita Pit for dinner, watched Seinfeld, listened to 90's music, and pretty much enjoyed one another's company for eight hours straight. I was totally wired...it was one of those moments where you let your guard down completely and all inhibitions melt into oblilvion. I haven't laughed so hard since the Morehead City trip with Joe and Colleen.
5. I had my best day ever of shooting at the DTH. Three pictures published in one day!
6. I got to speak Spanish with a Mexican worker.
7. My U.S. History professor announced in his very British accent that his last name was "Quigley."
8. I got three free meals in two days. Yay for friends with meal plans and professors with cash.
9. I reconnected with Galen and Ricky and Natalie and other photo people that I am sometimes intimidated by. My J480 class is a wondeful mix of photographers...a 31 year old and some pretty talented undergrads. It's like a family....aww.
10. Writing this blog. I have missed writing so much that I have forgotten about how much I love it.
Some of the bad things that happened this week:
1. Doubts. Lots and lots of doubts. It's satan's way of creeping into my being and preventing me from giving my all to anything...whether it be relationships, photojournalism, my calling, sleep.
2. I stepped on my contact lens this morning.
3. My car wouldn't start...again. Which leads to number four.
4. I have to wake up in five hours to drive my car to Wake Forest for an appointment with the dealer.
5. I didn't pray very much or spend time in the Word. GAH. I know God's work in my life and in other people's lives isn't dependent on my actions, but I nonetheless have a responsibility that I am failing to carry out. And it hurts me that I can get so busy and bogged down with worry that I forget or rationalize my way out of prayer. I really miss God and those quiet times that marked the summer. the type of quiet times that would completely transform my state of mind or mood. pray that I can pray, basically. hopefully i'll utilize the long weekend accordingly...
I guess that's it. I don't want to think of other lowpoints.
The week was grey. So-so. But mostly grey from the rain. But still good. I like rain, remember?
Anyways, I think it's really cool that God has made people so DIFFERENTLY and with such care--esmero, in spanish--and beauty. I look at my friend Matt and amazed that his brain is so darn different than mine...that he is so rational and could love something like economics and business with such passion and dedication. I look at my friend Laura and marvel that God could create someone who has such a big heart and caring nature. Then I think of myself, and praise Him that he made me this way (even though at many points during the week I was angry/annoyed with his handiwork). I learn experientially and emotionally...I like that I am so emotional and that I feel things so deeply and crave experience. It used to be a vice, especially my senior year of high school, but when balanced it really edifies things. Especially with photojournalism. I don't learn by memorizing or by regurgitating or by rationalizing. I learn by images, really and think in images. fragments. I see things in my head...not concrete images, mind you. more like colors and hues that i translate into words and feelings. it comes out in my writing, I think, and this is why i have such a hard time conversing with people. I am a writer and an artist, not a talker and an arguer. And it can be so frustrating, but deep down...when i am doing those things that God created me to do, thinking the way he created me to think, writing the way he created me to write...I am so unbelievably in love with the way I am and the fact that God chose to make me that way. More power to Him!
And it's cool that God is teaching me how to be those things I'm not...how to listen better, how to communiate better, how to rest better.
I'll save my photojournalism ponderings for another entry.
Por ahora, tengo que acostarme. Descanso, descanso dulce, descanso.
Monday, August 21, 2006
jumblyness
I sit in my corner of Old East residence hall at the university and am not sure what to write. The day has been a blur of faces new and old, things to buy and schedules to be made. And at midday, after buying posters for the room, catching up with an old suitemate, adding classes, dropping classes, and worrying as the riptide begins to strengthen, I wonder how on earth I will be able to continue at this pace once classes begin. I enjoyed myself for the first eight hours of the day, but as evening approached I began to walk in a haze, exhausted and wanting to just curl up in my cozy, lofted bed under my canopy and read C.S. Lewis and talk to Colleen on the phone.
I still have one foot in summer and the other in some foreign land that may be Chile or Spain or the future or the past, I’m not sure what. But it somehow prevents me from fully enjoying the present. Although I suppose my standards are too high, you have to admit it’s odd that nobody in collegetown factors in “boredom” or “fatigue” or “mediocrity” on the scale of life emotions. I think more than anything, the spiritual pace here is tiring. I am baffled at how so many students can go, go, go constantly, drinking and partying well into the morning, and constantly surround themselves with young people, rarely taking a moment to relax, unwind, call a parent, reconcile with a friend. I get caught up in this, too, so I am one to point fingers, but for some reason I am getting a bigger whiff of it this year than I have before. And this observation is not going to cause me to be ensnared by melancholia and depression, yet I still wonder why students are always smiling…so much that their mouths could not stretch any wider.
I wish I could see beneath all the layers. I can’t see through.
It’s really hard for me to apply different Christian principles to real life situations, even though I hold them true in my heart and mind. How do you show love to incoming freshmen, for instance? Is it simply smiling and telling them that you are here to answer any questions? I don’t know…it was this very superficial friendliness and southern “hospitality” that I was so befuddled by last year. I just wanted someone to listen to me, but I didn’t want to approach them…I didn’t know who to approach, after all. And I wanted someone to show and emotion other than giddiness. I feel like love entails a stronger, more active involvement. But how do I play this out?
I can pray for the incoming students. For the confused, the hurting, the lonely, the ones that are having problems with their roommates, the ones that are pulling out maps on the lower quad trying to find their way through a yellow school of fish. But when I get out of my dorm room, out into the real world, I get awkward.
College is fun, yes. Meeting new people is fun, yes. But for me, at least, a large chunk of it involves darting in and out of awkwardness. Trying to break down walls and recognize my own facades and strive for honesty in thinking and feeling and conveying such. At times I still feel like a middle school student.
I rejoice in the fact that God is willing to work with and through my awkwardness. Even though I don’t know how to use a compass or steer my way through college, God is going to help me overcome securities and fears and that the process will be pleasing in His sight. God is not finished with me yet and has promised to do good things. It comforts me to read the Psalms and know that even these great figures in Christian history and world history struggled in the daily grind of life. I particularly like how David and other psalmists start some of their psalms despairing, aware of their sin but unable to see God’s goodness. There is so much feeling and wrestling in those psalms, and in each on there is some sort of turning point. The psalmist goes to the sanctuary of God and finds tangible rest in Him. You can see the curtain being lifted and the light shining in as the psalm becomes less about the psalmist and more about God’s goodness. God works through the psalmists’ own jumbled emotions and thoughts and expression.
I have no idea where this post is going. I’m tired and need to go to sleep. I don’t even know if it had an over-arching theme.
I’ll end it with one of my favorite verses, as of July:
The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me;
your love, O LORD, endures forever—
do not abandon the works of your hands.
psalm 138
I still have one foot in summer and the other in some foreign land that may be Chile or Spain or the future or the past, I’m not sure what. But it somehow prevents me from fully enjoying the present. Although I suppose my standards are too high, you have to admit it’s odd that nobody in collegetown factors in “boredom” or “fatigue” or “mediocrity” on the scale of life emotions. I think more than anything, the spiritual pace here is tiring. I am baffled at how so many students can go, go, go constantly, drinking and partying well into the morning, and constantly surround themselves with young people, rarely taking a moment to relax, unwind, call a parent, reconcile with a friend. I get caught up in this, too, so I am one to point fingers, but for some reason I am getting a bigger whiff of it this year than I have before. And this observation is not going to cause me to be ensnared by melancholia and depression, yet I still wonder why students are always smiling…so much that their mouths could not stretch any wider.
I wish I could see beneath all the layers. I can’t see through.
It’s really hard for me to apply different Christian principles to real life situations, even though I hold them true in my heart and mind. How do you show love to incoming freshmen, for instance? Is it simply smiling and telling them that you are here to answer any questions? I don’t know…it was this very superficial friendliness and southern “hospitality” that I was so befuddled by last year. I just wanted someone to listen to me, but I didn’t want to approach them…I didn’t know who to approach, after all. And I wanted someone to show and emotion other than giddiness. I feel like love entails a stronger, more active involvement. But how do I play this out?
I can pray for the incoming students. For the confused, the hurting, the lonely, the ones that are having problems with their roommates, the ones that are pulling out maps on the lower quad trying to find their way through a yellow school of fish. But when I get out of my dorm room, out into the real world, I get awkward.
College is fun, yes. Meeting new people is fun, yes. But for me, at least, a large chunk of it involves darting in and out of awkwardness. Trying to break down walls and recognize my own facades and strive for honesty in thinking and feeling and conveying such. At times I still feel like a middle school student.
I rejoice in the fact that God is willing to work with and through my awkwardness. Even though I don’t know how to use a compass or steer my way through college, God is going to help me overcome securities and fears and that the process will be pleasing in His sight. God is not finished with me yet and has promised to do good things. It comforts me to read the Psalms and know that even these great figures in Christian history and world history struggled in the daily grind of life. I particularly like how David and other psalmists start some of their psalms despairing, aware of their sin but unable to see God’s goodness. There is so much feeling and wrestling in those psalms, and in each on there is some sort of turning point. The psalmist goes to the sanctuary of God and finds tangible rest in Him. You can see the curtain being lifted and the light shining in as the psalm becomes less about the psalmist and more about God’s goodness. God works through the psalmists’ own jumbled emotions and thoughts and expression.
I have no idea where this post is going. I’m tired and need to go to sleep. I don’t even know if it had an over-arching theme.
I’ll end it with one of my favorite verses, as of July:
The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me;
your love, O LORD, endures forever—
do not abandon the works of your hands.
psalm 138
Ah, the last post, a bit belated. now onto college.
Tuesday
All of Tuesday was devoted to dithering around in NYC. The day marked two first: the first time that I ever rode a train other than the St. Louis zoo train, and the first time that I saw rain since early July. Both were welcomed with open arms. I love rainy days in the summer…they are so much moodier and deeper than the same old sunshine and cloudless skies.
We started off the day with Dunkin Donuts. (Didn’t I say that it was the Starbucks of New Haven?)
On the train I continued feeding my addiction to Sudoku and wrote a little bit in lieu of quiet time. The round-trip train-ride cost less than 30 bucks, which is pretty darn good considering that we were stuck on the Brooklyn bridge by car for nearly two hours when we drove from NYC to New Haven. Train transit is so much better and not stressful!
When we stepped out of Grand Central Station into the New York City madness we were on sensory overload. I had no idea where to go, what to look at, what smells to avoid, what sounds to pay attention to. Those first few minutes of New York City buzz knock the wind out of your senses in a way that is akin to an adrenaline rush while sky diving. It’s absolutely amazing, those first few minutes. (Interestingly enough, my photographs of the initial NYC-shock are poorly framed with no particular focal point. Funny how I couldn’t produce good, focused, work, eh? I was trying to capture everything at once which is impossible).
I don’t remember minute details from the trip, like which streets and avenues we were on at which times. (Colleen was the navigator, anyways). What I can recall isn’t a mosaic, but more like wisps of blurred paint, sort of like when you are driving on the road during a storm and the wet windshield blurs all of the streetlights and colors. I can recall the honking horns, the wind hitting the buildings, the chatter of people, the sound of feet hitting the ground, the Doppler effect in action, the vivid advertisements, that distinct NYC smell of sewers and people and infrastructures. It’s so intense. I love it.
We spent the first couple of hours shopping. Colleen bought some classy green shoes while I was preoccupied with feeling very much out of place in my green shirt and tennis shoes, wishing I had more style and wondering how on earth NYC girls look so good. We hit Joe’s favorite store (har har) H&M for nearly an hour. Colleen and I bought matching outfits (Mom would be happy that we are carrying on her tradition of dressing us the same) and chic accessories.
Lunch was at the world-famous Carnegie Deli, one of the best delis in the nation. The food was amazing…we dined on pickles, Jewish potato pancakes, and a mammoth BLT. I have no idea how much bacon I consumed. It might have been a whole baby pig.
Mid-afternoon brought us to about eight shoe stores. I dragged Colleen to every shoe store on Lexington Avenue in search of comfy Puma-ish shoelace-less tennis shoes. I finally found some AWESOME ones at Naturalizer, and my afternoon mission was fulfilled.
We took a break below this cool huge topless gazebo thing sipping iced coffee from Starbucks and talking to Joe and Beth on our cell phones. A very interesting Starbucks photoshoot occurred. See facebook.com for more information.
Early evening brought us through Central Park. I took some pictures of Swedish boys who didn’t speak much English and targeted unsuspecting tourists. I guess I’m pretty obvious with my camera glued to my face, shouting bonehead things like, “Isn’t it cool to see skyscrapers juxtaposed with green trees?” Joe targets pregnant women and mothers with kids when he wants someone to take his picture. Great.
The Zuul building was Colleen’s favorite part of the trip, I can just tell. She has like ten pictures on her camera,
and eight of them are of the Zuul building. It was pretty exciting, I admit, trekking through Central Park towards 65th street in order to behold Dana Barret’s apartment (aka the Zuul building) that was the site of the Ghostbusters movie. You can’t miss it, because it’s next to that beautiful church that the Pillsbury Doughboy squashed.
At twilight we took the subway down to 14th street at Greenwich Village and Washington Square. The area was completely different from the buzz of midtown…shorter apartment complexes replaced skyscrapers, normally-dressed people replaced fashion models, road signs replaced advertisements, and eclectic shops like “Tu Tu” and “Gatsby’s Restaurant” replaced Bloomingdales and the Hard Rock Café. Men were playing chess on the street, children were riding bikes through fountains, men were walking dogs. It was almost normal. Then you remember you are in NYC…
We dined at Little Italy for dinner and grabbed some gelato from a pastry store for dessert. We did some final shopping in Chinatown before taking the Subway back to Grand Central and the train back to New Haven. We arrived home at 12:30, exhausted and with sore feet from a long, fulfilling day.
All of Tuesday was devoted to dithering around in NYC. The day marked two first: the first time that I ever rode a train other than the St. Louis zoo train, and the first time that I saw rain since early July. Both were welcomed with open arms. I love rainy days in the summer…they are so much moodier and deeper than the same old sunshine and cloudless skies.
We started off the day with Dunkin Donuts. (Didn’t I say that it was the Starbucks of New Haven?)
On the train I continued feeding my addiction to Sudoku and wrote a little bit in lieu of quiet time. The round-trip train-ride cost less than 30 bucks, which is pretty darn good considering that we were stuck on the Brooklyn bridge by car for nearly two hours when we drove from NYC to New Haven. Train transit is so much better and not stressful!
When we stepped out of Grand Central Station into the New York City madness we were on sensory overload. I had no idea where to go, what to look at, what smells to avoid, what sounds to pay attention to. Those first few minutes of New York City buzz knock the wind out of your senses in a way that is akin to an adrenaline rush while sky diving. It’s absolutely amazing, those first few minutes. (Interestingly enough, my photographs of the initial NYC-shock are poorly framed with no particular focal point. Funny how I couldn’t produce good, focused, work, eh? I was trying to capture everything at once which is impossible).I don’t remember minute details from the trip, like which streets and avenues we were on at which times. (Colleen was the navigator, anyways). What I can recall isn’t a mosaic, but more like wisps of blurred paint, sort of like when you are driving on the road during a storm and the wet windshield blurs all of the streetlights and colors. I can recall the honking horns, the wind hitting the buildings, the chatter of people, the sound of feet hitting the ground, the Doppler effect in action, the vivid advertisements, that distinct NYC smell of sewers and people and infrastructures. It’s so intense. I love it.
We spent the first couple of hours shopping. Colleen bought some classy green shoes while I was preoccupied with feeling very much out of place in my green shirt and tennis shoes, wishing I had more style and wondering how on earth NYC girls look so good. We hit Joe’s favorite store (har har) H&M for nearly an hour. Colleen and I bought matching outfits (Mom would be happy that we are carrying on her tradition of dressing us the same) and chic accessories.
Lunch was at the world-famous Carnegie Deli, one of the best delis in the nation. The food was amazing…we dined on pickles, Jewish potato pancakes, and a mammoth BLT. I have no idea how much bacon I consumed. It might have been a whole baby pig.
Mid-afternoon brought us to about eight shoe stores. I dragged Colleen to every shoe store on Lexington Avenue in search of comfy Puma-ish shoelace-less tennis shoes. I finally found some AWESOME ones at Naturalizer, and my afternoon mission was fulfilled.
We took a break below this cool huge topless gazebo thing sipping iced coffee from Starbucks and talking to Joe and Beth on our cell phones. A very interesting Starbucks photoshoot occurred. See facebook.com for more information.Early evening brought us through Central Park. I took some pictures of Swedish boys who didn’t speak much English and targeted unsuspecting tourists. I guess I’m pretty obvious with my camera glued to my face, shouting bonehead things like, “Isn’t it cool to see skyscrapers juxtaposed with green trees?” Joe targets pregnant women and mothers with kids when he wants someone to take his picture. Great.
The Zuul building was Colleen’s favorite part of the trip, I can just tell. She has like ten pictures on her camera,
and eight of them are of the Zuul building. It was pretty exciting, I admit, trekking through Central Park towards 65th street in order to behold Dana Barret’s apartment (aka the Zuul building) that was the site of the Ghostbusters movie. You can’t miss it, because it’s next to that beautiful church that the Pillsbury Doughboy squashed.
At twilight we took the subway down to 14th street at Greenwich Village and Washington Square. The area was completely different from the buzz of midtown…shorter apartment complexes replaced skyscrapers, normally-dressed people replaced fashion models, road signs replaced advertisements, and eclectic shops like “Tu Tu” and “Gatsby’s Restaurant” replaced Bloomingdales and the Hard Rock Café. Men were playing chess on the street, children were riding bikes through fountains, men were walking dogs. It was almost normal. Then you remember you are in NYC…
We dined at Little Italy for dinner and grabbed some gelato from a pastry store for dessert. We did some final shopping in Chinatown before taking the Subway back to Grand Central and the train back to New Haven. We arrived home at 12:30, exhausted and with sore feet from a long, fulfilling day.
Saturday, August 19, 2006
D-Day
Monday
We woke up early to take dad to the airport. He carried on the conversation all by himself on the one-hour ride there and said so many funny things. It’s refreshing having him around…he’s really jovial and cackly (there’s not really another word to for it!) and though his gross exaggerations may aggravate me, I have to admit they are pretty funny and he is much more knowledgable than I had previously thought in high school. He knows his stuff, whether about politics or Iraq or trucking (duh, it’s his job!) and I ought to give him more credit, because he’s a pretty cool guy.
Colleen and I crashed the party at Ikea for the next two and a half hours and had a blast looking at pretty Swedish furniture and dreaming about all the cool things she could one day have in her apartment. The store is intruiging…sort of reminiscent of a Home Depot only ten times as large and with two floors devoted solely to display of the assembled furniture in fake “rooms.” The furniture isn’t all that expensive, either, compared to Target and mainstream department stores.
The catch is you have to assemble everything yourself. We would spend the remainder of the day assembling (and cursing at) a stubborn floor bed frame, a bookcase, a table, and four chairs while unpacking boxes. We pretty much finished the kitchen and started on the living room by the evening and punctuated the process with a mid-afternoon Starbucks
and venture to Target and Bed Bath & Beyond, and a late night run to get Chinese food. We ended the day with a giant celebration of Colleen’s birthday. (Giant celebration= watching 2 episodes of Arrested Development, Colleen’s birthday gift from Joe). That show is really growing on me. I like Tobias dressed as a British housekeeper.
The day was quite enjoyable, though. I really like using my hands to build stuff. It’s not every day that you assemble an apartment’s worth of furniture, and I guess I’m looking forward to when I can furnish my own apartment, then my own house, then hopefully my children’s bedrooms and what not. But that is far away in time and space. For now, I’m enjoying this.
We woke up early to take dad to the airport. He carried on the conversation all by himself on the one-hour ride there and said so many funny things. It’s refreshing having him around…he’s really jovial and cackly (there’s not really another word to for it!) and though his gross exaggerations may aggravate me, I have to admit they are pretty funny and he is much more knowledgable than I had previously thought in high school. He knows his stuff, whether about politics or Iraq or trucking (duh, it’s his job!) and I ought to give him more credit, because he’s a pretty cool guy.
Colleen and I crashed the party at Ikea for the next two and a half hours and had a blast looking at pretty Swedish furniture and dreaming about all the cool things she could one day have in her apartment. The store is intruiging…sort of reminiscent of a Home Depot only ten times as large and with two floors devoted solely to display of the assembled furniture in fake “rooms.” The furniture isn’t all that expensive, either, compared to Target and mainstream department stores.
The catch is you have to assemble everything yourself. We would spend the remainder of the day assembling (and cursing at) a stubborn floor bed frame, a bookcase, a table, and four chairs while unpacking boxes. We pretty much finished the kitchen and started on the living room by the evening and punctuated the process with a mid-afternoon Starbucks
and venture to Target and Bed Bath & Beyond, and a late night run to get Chinese food. We ended the day with a giant celebration of Colleen’s birthday. (Giant celebration= watching 2 episodes of Arrested Development, Colleen’s birthday gift from Joe). That show is really growing on me. I like Tobias dressed as a British housekeeper. The day was quite enjoyable, though. I really like using my hands to build stuff. It’s not every day that you assemble an apartment’s worth of furniture, and I guess I’m looking forward to when I can furnish my own apartment, then my own house, then hopefully my children’s bedrooms and what not. But that is far away in time and space. For now, I’m enjoying this.
Friday, August 18, 2006
The Day After
Sunday
This was probably the least arduous day (in terms of physical labor and fatigue…heheh), seeing as we all woke up around 9:30 in order to grab free coffee and donuts from the motel’s continental breakfast. We spent the remainder of the morning at 43 Edwards Street moving Colleen into her new New Haven apartment. This entailed searching for a lost key, emptying the U-Haul, and normal moving stuff that I don’t feel like expanding on here.
The afternoon was spent exploring downtown New Haven and the Yale campus. The area is really cute but not so cute that it looks artificial. The area has a very urban, worn-down appearance that suites it well and houses lots of eclectic shops (and the standard Dunkin Donuts…the Starbucks of New Haven, of course). At times it has a European atmosphere, especially when you approach the mammoth Gothic cathedrals and university buildings or walk past restaurants’ plastic outdoor furniture.
I was struck by how very different it was from Wake Forest, North Carolina and by how much I missed being in an urban culture. I didn’t realize how foreign the Carolinas were until I left them and felt a completely different level of comfort and intrigue. That’s not to say I don’t like Chapel Hill (eh..Wake Forest is a different story, though), because it’s a fun place to be for college, but I think that my heart ultimately lies with cities. Cities that aren’t in the South, that is. 
After a two and half hour walk my dad went back to the hotel to crash, where Colleen and I joined him briefly for a viewing of a cheesy Lizzie Maguire movie that my dad really wanted to watch. Colleen and I left him to get his fill of Disney and we trekked to the Milford mall and Target to buy clothing (me) and apartment supplies (her). We hit up Uno’s Pizzeria and enjoyed a nice, relaxing dinner seasoned with good conversations and deep-dish pizza. yum. In a way, we celebrated more than her birthday as we reflected on the past year and Colleen’s undergrad experience. There was some nostalgia in the air on both our parts but it was so refreshing to talk with Colleen. I absolutely love spending time with her. At the core, we haven’t changed at all since we were little and used to warp each other’s minds and fan the flame. But now it’s even better, because we still retain our innate weirdness and bring it out in each other when we are together, yet we are able to have a level of conversation that is more “adult” and edifying and it’s really cool. And though during the school year we both get busy and sort of pave our own separate paths, whenever we meet again we are able to pick up from where we left off. I feel so blessed to have a big sister who is such a good role model…so godly and full of integrity, compassionate and with a heart for others, talented, but completely wacky.
I can’t wait to visit her in her apartment this year.
We spent the remainder of the evening doing Sudoku and watching TV. I got hooked on this really bizarre Alfred Hitchcock-ish horror flick with Richard Gere and Uma Thurman. I finally fell asleep around I don’t know when…maybe 1:30?
Thursday, August 17, 2006
The Day Of
Saturday
Dad, Colleen, and I arose around seven a.m. in order to shower, figure out an apt travel route, and down many cups of dark roast coffee.
Dad cleverly decided to change routes in order to take the “quicker” 600 mile trip that boasted a 12 hour travel time.
This glorious route, in fact, took approximately 16 hours, frosted with icing that looked like a 1 ½ traffic jam over the Brooklyn Bridge. Also sprinkled with dad’s ‘creative’ route out of Wake Forest…
It may very well have been the most entertaining car-ride of my life, proven
by the fact that I didn’t fall asleep until nearly 11:30 p.m. after getting only six hours of sleep. The route, albeit unnecessarily long, was gorgeous, taking us along the Eastern Seaboard through North Carolina, Virginia, Washington D.C., Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut.
Colleen and I listened to the most eclectic mix of music I have ever heard, which included John Cage’s postmodern “Aria,” Radiohead, music from Star Wars and Gladiator, Chumbawumba, Chicago, the Gremlin’s theme song, the Popcorn Song, original harp songs composed by Colleen’s friend WES based off of the “Limberlost” folk-tales, John Rutter choral arrangements, and the Beatles. Can you guess which song we played when we approached D.C. (think UFO’s)? What about New York City (think green monsters)?
Another highlight from the road trip was Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury book on tape. We listened to one and a half CD’s of the eight hour CD set. The punch line from that book should be “Caddy smelled like trees.”
Another highlight was the Jersey Turnpike, which isn’t as glorious as its cracked up to be, in terms of tolls and a lack of bathrooms, but it is a wonderful road for speeding and racing. We were the proud participants of a nail-biting car chase that lasted twenty miles in hot pursuit of the notorious Silky Basmati Rice van. Below you can view a very professional, factual synopsis and captivating photographs:
And at the end of the day, we crashed in our Super 8 motel room in Milford, CT.
Dad, Colleen, and I arose around seven a.m. in order to shower, figure out an apt travel route, and down many cups of dark roast coffee.
Dad cleverly decided to change routes in order to take the “quicker” 600 mile trip that boasted a 12 hour travel time.
This glorious route, in fact, took approximately 16 hours, frosted with icing that looked like a 1 ½ traffic jam over the Brooklyn Bridge. Also sprinkled with dad’s ‘creative’ route out of Wake Forest…
It may very well have been the most entertaining car-ride of my life, proven
by the fact that I didn’t fall asleep until nearly 11:30 p.m. after getting only six hours of sleep. The route, albeit unnecessarily long, was gorgeous, taking us along the Eastern Seaboard through North Carolina, Virginia, Washington D.C., Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut.
Colleen and I listened to the most eclectic mix of music I have ever heard, which included John Cage’s postmodern “Aria,” Radiohead, music from Star Wars and Gladiator, Chumbawumba, Chicago, the Gremlin’s theme song, the Popcorn Song, original harp songs composed by Colleen’s friend WES based off of the “Limberlost” folk-tales, John Rutter choral arrangements, and the Beatles. Can you guess which song we played when we approached D.C. (think UFO’s)? What about New York City (think green monsters)?Another highlight from the road trip was Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury book on tape. We listened to one and a half CD’s of the eight hour CD set. The punch line from that book should be “Caddy smelled like trees.”
Another highlight was the Jersey Turnpike, which isn’t as glorious as its cracked up to be, in terms of tolls and a lack of bathrooms, but it is a wonderful road for speeding and racing. We were the proud participants of a nail-biting car chase that lasted twenty miles in hot pursuit of the notorious Silky Basmati Rice van. Below you can view a very professional, factual synopsis and captivating photographs:And at the end of the day, we crashed in our Super 8 motel room in Milford, CT.
The Day Before
Friday.
The trip really begins here, where Colleen and I begin to pack at the last-minute. It was an ordinary day filled with just the right amount of frantic searching, screaming, sobbing, shoving, and squeezing belongings into all-too-small suitcases/all too-large U-hauls. We moved all five cars into the street just to further solidify our presence in the Kayenta Court neighborhood, and Mom picked up the U-Haul that would soon transport everything my sister ever owned to New England. The family went to the Macaroni Grill for an unusual dinner with all six members present. There Colleen and I drew flattering pictures of Rusty on the paper tablecloth, consumed a delicious lobster ravioli and chocolate cake, and (I) tortured the grandparents with my camera. An extraneous yet fun excursion to Bed Bath and Beyond was made as Colleen bore a tear(less) good-bye to the shopping district of Wake Forest.
The trip really begins here, where Colleen and I begin to pack at the last-minute. It was an ordinary day filled with just the right amount of frantic searching, screaming, sobbing, shoving, and squeezing belongings into all-too-small suitcases/all too-large U-hauls. We moved all five cars into the street just to further solidify our presence in the Kayenta Court neighborhood, and Mom picked up the U-Haul that would soon transport everything my sister ever owned to New England. The family went to the Macaroni Grill for an unusual dinner with all six members present. There Colleen and I drew flattering pictures of Rusty on the paper tablecloth, consumed a delicious lobster ravioli and chocolate cake, and (I) tortured the grandparents with my camera. An extraneous yet fun excursion to Bed Bath and Beyond was made as Colleen bore a tear(less) good-bye to the shopping district of Wake Forest.
The Last Sha-bang
And so the Summer of Travel ends with a bang—one final trip that will be made again several times over the next two years, God willing. We accomplished a lot in the last four days, which were spent in Connecticut and New York City, respectively, with my sister and dad to move Colleen into Yale for grad school. And because I was too busy to document my travels on paper, I will now dump all of the experiences, funny sayings, and realizations that have laid dormant in my mind for the past couple of days onto this blog. I’m going to break up my entries by days.
Brace yourselves.
Brace yourselves.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Providence
When I was small I used to get goosebumps when I thought about airplanes. To ride an airplane was an amazing feat—to suddenly go from home to a new place in the span of hours. It evoked a sense of wonder and dread—wonder that I could be so high in the air and so quickly displaced from all that is familiar, and dread that my life is fragile and I could feasibly plummet into the depths of the sea and disappear into oblivion if the plane malfunctioned.
My envisioning of “airplane” is no different than that of real life, as both should rightly incur both wonder and dread. It’s remarkable, really, if you ponder it.
.
You are leaving a distinct location and its concomitant memories behind and moving onward to something else completely new. Even if you are returning home you are different, affected by what you just left, so you are beginning a very real and tangible new chapter. The place you have left was once foreign but is now familiar—not just lodged in your memory but something that has changed your very being. And if what you have left is home, it is only home because you have made it home, whether over a span of sixty years, six years, or six days. Therefore, even “home” was once foreign. .
That time in the air, away from everything old and new is a glorious in limbo state where you’re neither here nor there physically but a little bit of both interiorly, reflecting on where you were and anticipating where you’re heading. And as you look out across the varied horizon you realize that life is both microcosmic and macrocosmic in scope. Humans are but tiny chess pieces placed on a giant board, yet that board has no limits and everything matters. You are daily living this gigantic paradox of being a tiny and seemingly insignificant creature in a vast world whose actions and mere physis, or being, is actually large and significant.
That in limbo state is overpowering when experienced in full. An array of emotions and thoughts collide so you’re not really sure if what you think and feel in the here and now is reliable, for you felt content in the place you are leaving but now you are in the air and that place is diminishing in time and space and the contentedness…what was it, really? Now the wonder and awe of the future is absorbing you. And when you think about it, you are eve more awed about the present: that your emotions could so quickly fuse together, that past and future could so quickly melt into one state in your mind. Where have the lines of demarcation gone?
You think about it, and realize that though everything is jumbled while in the air the past and future remain distinct. Old things make sense and you that what was once broken is now fixed and that you are staring into Purpose. So even though you have no idea where you are right now and you may now know where you’re going, you know two things for certain: you have come from someplace and you are going somewhere. There IS direction, but you only see it now where time zones mix and all that is distinct on the ground becomes one Earth from above. Everything is horribly blended now, but it is in that very fusion that you more clearly recognize the distinctions, maybe for the first time, even.
Life appears but fleeting. You are always on a plane—always leaving somewhere and going somewhere else, never on the ground. In the grand scheme of things, life on Earth is but temporary, for soon you will be seated at the right hand of God or burning in the depths of hell, but this transitory state does not lack meaning. Quite the contrary, life IS meaningful and only when you’re observing it from a bird’s eye view—neither here nor there—can you see just how far you’ve come and just how far you’ll go. You have put on the lens of Time, experiencing past, present, and future simultaneously though not knowing the details of those states.
For are we ever “here” or “there?” We are always moving on, moving up, moving forward and moving back. The direction itself is irrelevant; the point is that we’re in motion from on state to another…from melancholia to joy, from childhood to adulthood, from melancholia to joy, , from east to west, from sleep to wake, and then back again. We are always in transition, always learning, always changing, always growing.
I saw all of this on a single plane ride over New England.
My envisioning of “airplane” is no different than that of real life, as both should rightly incur both wonder and dread. It’s remarkable, really, if you ponder it.
.
You are leaving a distinct location and its concomitant memories behind and moving onward to something else completely new. Even if you are returning home you are different, affected by what you just left, so you are beginning a very real and tangible new chapter. The place you have left was once foreign but is now familiar—not just lodged in your memory but something that has changed your very being. And if what you have left is home, it is only home because you have made it home, whether over a span of sixty years, six years, or six days. Therefore, even “home” was once foreign. .
That time in the air, away from everything old and new is a glorious in limbo state where you’re neither here nor there physically but a little bit of both interiorly, reflecting on where you were and anticipating where you’re heading. And as you look out across the varied horizon you realize that life is both microcosmic and macrocosmic in scope. Humans are but tiny chess pieces placed on a giant board, yet that board has no limits and everything matters. You are daily living this gigantic paradox of being a tiny and seemingly insignificant creature in a vast world whose actions and mere physis, or being, is actually large and significant.
That in limbo state is overpowering when experienced in full. An array of emotions and thoughts collide so you’re not really sure if what you think and feel in the here and now is reliable, for you felt content in the place you are leaving but now you are in the air and that place is diminishing in time and space and the contentedness…what was it, really? Now the wonder and awe of the future is absorbing you. And when you think about it, you are eve more awed about the present: that your emotions could so quickly fuse together, that past and future could so quickly melt into one state in your mind. Where have the lines of demarcation gone?
You think about it, and realize that though everything is jumbled while in the air the past and future remain distinct. Old things make sense and you that what was once broken is now fixed and that you are staring into Purpose. So even though you have no idea where you are right now and you may now know where you’re going, you know two things for certain: you have come from someplace and you are going somewhere. There IS direction, but you only see it now where time zones mix and all that is distinct on the ground becomes one Earth from above. Everything is horribly blended now, but it is in that very fusion that you more clearly recognize the distinctions, maybe for the first time, even.
Life appears but fleeting. You are always on a plane—always leaving somewhere and going somewhere else, never on the ground. In the grand scheme of things, life on Earth is but temporary, for soon you will be seated at the right hand of God or burning in the depths of hell, but this transitory state does not lack meaning. Quite the contrary, life IS meaningful and only when you’re observing it from a bird’s eye view—neither here nor there—can you see just how far you’ve come and just how far you’ll go. You have put on the lens of Time, experiencing past, present, and future simultaneously though not knowing the details of those states.
For are we ever “here” or “there?” We are always moving on, moving up, moving forward and moving back. The direction itself is irrelevant; the point is that we’re in motion from on state to another…from melancholia to joy, from childhood to adulthood, from melancholia to joy, , from east to west, from sleep to wake, and then back again. We are always in transition, always learning, always changing, always growing.
I saw all of this on a single plane ride over New England.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
people
The past two weeks have been excellent. I have so much to write about that I don't know where to start, so this will be the abbreviated version.
Where have I been, you might ask? What have I been doing for the past two weeks?
Nothing and Everything.
Joe came to visit us in NC for about nine days. That brief span of time stretch out into eternity, as we remained the right level of "busy" (which denotes no responsibility whatsoever, just freedom (more or less) to do as we pleased and go where we wished). Joe, Colleen, and I resided in Wake Forest for the majority of Joe's stay and exhausted all of the "fun" things to do in the area...which pretty much includes trips to Wal-mart, the movie theater, every icecream store around (ha...two), have a stick-driving lesson in an abandoned home depot parking lot, eat at every renowned local restaraunt, terrorize the dogs, and vegetate at home, naturally. the latter included late-night m. night shymalan fests, backrubs, doing odd tasks around the house for my grandparents, making dinners, eating dinners, looking at photographs, reading, watching hilarious re-runs of fullhouse and cosby show, watch the dog whisperer...the list goes on and on and on....
It wasn't so much the particular activities we did that made those nine days memorable. Heck, I could sit around and watch TV any old day. I've been to most of the restaurants we ate at, I've gone to Chapel Hill plenty of times, and all that has resullted when solitary is a time killed not very productively and a large gas bill. The difference was enjoying all of these activities with two people that I love very much. I don't think I've laughed so much in a while, especially since I was (mostly) cooped up in the house alone during rhe previous month. It's funny how mundane activities can be made meaningful when the activity isn't ultimately the main focus...just "being" with someone else is.
I really like learning from other people. Joe and Colleen both offer unique qualities and it's fun when their specialized knowledge, gifts, or traits are revealed. I like when they talk about music...it transports me to my high school world of touring choir and piano, but then again it transcends that world as i learn about new things, like the difficulty of conducting and evil harp teachers and the like. Colleen is really sensitive towards others needs and has a lot of astute insights on Christian history and theology. Joe is really technically-oriented (he set up my grandparents' and mother's sound system without instructions!)and very rational. He can back up pretty much anything he says with a very reasonable list of arguments, whether it be a treatise on the morality of man or what it is that makes m night's movies scary.
But I also like that though Colleen and Joe and I have all changed in ways over the past year, we can still relate to each other in a healthy, familiar way. It's so enjoyable and so comfortable. Despite the drastic change in scenery, we can still sit on the couch and make a back-rub chain while making fun of retard dogs on the dog whisperer. at the same time, we can still maintain a level of maturity and have insightful, refreshing conversations. I love it.
I hope I can maintain that balance throughout my adult life. Always carrying a child-like disposition where I can laugh at stupid TV shows and act juvenile when fitting, but also have good conversations.
Here's some good quotes from the week.
Colleen (excitedly): "Wouldn't it be cool if that were zuul?"
Joe (rationally): "No, Colleen, that would NOT be cool!"
*****************************************************8
(While watching Full House)
Joe: Their (the Tanners') living situation is so weird.
Me: Yeah, it's like one gay family.
(Laughing)
On the TV show, Danny say: "Jess, don't beat yourself up (about jumping to conclusions too quickly with DJ's beer incident)
Nothing needs to be said after this. There is much laughing.
Later we see a shot of Danny dressed like a woman. Joe and I fall to our knees laughing.
***********************************************************************
All of us, but mosty Joe: In a pitiful German accent:
"BO-HAN-GLES!!!!!!!!!"
Where have I been, you might ask? What have I been doing for the past two weeks?
Nothing and Everything.
Joe came to visit us in NC for about nine days. That brief span of time stretch out into eternity, as we remained the right level of "busy" (which denotes no responsibility whatsoever, just freedom (more or less) to do as we pleased and go where we wished). Joe, Colleen, and I resided in Wake Forest for the majority of Joe's stay and exhausted all of the "fun" things to do in the area...which pretty much includes trips to Wal-mart, the movie theater, every icecream store around (ha...two), have a stick-driving lesson in an abandoned home depot parking lot, eat at every renowned local restaraunt, terrorize the dogs, and vegetate at home, naturally. the latter included late-night m. night shymalan fests, backrubs, doing odd tasks around the house for my grandparents, making dinners, eating dinners, looking at photographs, reading, watching hilarious re-runs of fullhouse and cosby show, watch the dog whisperer...the list goes on and on and on....
It wasn't so much the particular activities we did that made those nine days memorable. Heck, I could sit around and watch TV any old day. I've been to most of the restaurants we ate at, I've gone to Chapel Hill plenty of times, and all that has resullted when solitary is a time killed not very productively and a large gas bill. The difference was enjoying all of these activities with two people that I love very much. I don't think I've laughed so much in a while, especially since I was (mostly) cooped up in the house alone during rhe previous month. It's funny how mundane activities can be made meaningful when the activity isn't ultimately the main focus...just "being" with someone else is.
I really like learning from other people. Joe and Colleen both offer unique qualities and it's fun when their specialized knowledge, gifts, or traits are revealed. I like when they talk about music...it transports me to my high school world of touring choir and piano, but then again it transcends that world as i learn about new things, like the difficulty of conducting and evil harp teachers and the like. Colleen is really sensitive towards others needs and has a lot of astute insights on Christian history and theology. Joe is really technically-oriented (he set up my grandparents' and mother's sound system without instructions!)and very rational. He can back up pretty much anything he says with a very reasonable list of arguments, whether it be a treatise on the morality of man or what it is that makes m night's movies scary.
But I also like that though Colleen and Joe and I have all changed in ways over the past year, we can still relate to each other in a healthy, familiar way. It's so enjoyable and so comfortable. Despite the drastic change in scenery, we can still sit on the couch and make a back-rub chain while making fun of retard dogs on the dog whisperer. at the same time, we can still maintain a level of maturity and have insightful, refreshing conversations. I love it.
I hope I can maintain that balance throughout my adult life. Always carrying a child-like disposition where I can laugh at stupid TV shows and act juvenile when fitting, but also have good conversations.
Here's some good quotes from the week.
Colleen (excitedly): "Wouldn't it be cool if that were zuul?"
Joe (rationally): "No, Colleen, that would NOT be cool!"
*****************************************************8
(While watching Full House)
Joe: Their (the Tanners') living situation is so weird.
Me: Yeah, it's like one gay family.
(Laughing)
On the TV show, Danny say: "Jess, don't beat yourself up (about jumping to conclusions too quickly with DJ's beer incident)
Nothing needs to be said after this. There is much laughing.
Later we see a shot of Danny dressed like a woman. Joe and I fall to our knees laughing.
***********************************************************************
All of us, but mosty Joe: In a pitiful German accent:
"BO-HAN-GLES!!!!!!!!!"
Monday, July 31, 2006
who's who.h
How many people are in my home?
Grandma and Grandpa, dogs and a gnome
Mom and Colleen and Dad at times
Joey an Courtney (minus dad) make nine.
Mug Shots of Who's Who in Wake Forest:
home
It's odd how I never write about place. In Chile I left all description of my environment to sporadic emails sent to my family. In July I sent my friends photographs of my family's new Wake Forest abode but failed to describe it in written word. I did the same for Georgia and Hilton Head, perhaps because I am a staunch believer in the adage "a picture is worth a thousand words." But, oh, how stronger a photograph is when butressed by the written language!
I am currently residing in Wake Forest, North Carolina. Apart from the desert San Pedro de Atacama in northern Chile, it's own of the most foreign places I've set foot in.
Let's do some compare and contrast 101.
St. Louis, Missouri, my hometown, is the 18th largest city in the United States with a population of over 2.7 million people (as of 2004). It has a lovely mixture of Civil War history with nice statues to commemorate it, national monuments (um, the Arch), good Anheuser-Busch beer, baseball fanatisism, and a pretty decent arts and music scene, spanning from classical to modern to british rock (MUSE!) To top it off, it boasts well over 15 varied, heterogenous suburbs with their own share of history, monuments, beer, baseball, and culture.
Wake Forest, North Carolina, my family's new hometown, is far from well-known, large, or important. Here's a diagram to orient you:
With a population of 20,000 and most of the houses hidden by sheets of skinny pine trees, it's sometimes difficult to even spot a house. It boasts three main roads: Capitol, Main Street, and Highway 401. The downtown is a hodgepodge of quaint tearooms, Southern antique stores, a Chevrolet museum, and a handful of restaurants.
Downtown ----->
(top: view of corner downtown;
middle: shack and pretty tree
next to the bank downtown; bottom: cool bridge)
St. Louis houses over 30 Starbucks and a myriad of locally owned coffeehouses, not to metion Kaldi's, Kayak Coffee, and Cuppa Jo, to name a few. Wake Forest boasts 1 Starbucks (which is technically in northern Raleigh) and a suspicious "religious" coffehouse called "The Well" which provides "good fellowship" with each iced latte. It's good for quiet times but doesn't have the most exctiting atmosphere.
One of the biggest differences, as so astutely discoverd by Joseph S. Madden, is with the street names...which are normal, if not somewhat classy, in St. Louis. Washington Avenue, the Page Extension, Ladue Road, Creve Couer, Old Bonhomme, Clayton, and the like. Many names are French and don't allude to any specific object. Last names are of people are prevalent (I lived on Schulte Hill Drive, for example, whose namesake was an old patient of my mother's). Names here allude to natural objects and animals or are just plain odd. Gross, Bratt Street, Reindeer Moss, Stacked Stone, and Falls of Neuse Road among the butt of our STL guests' jokes.
And St. Louis food is...to...die...for. Home of the Gooey butter cake, Provel cheese, Imo's pizza, Ted Drewes Frozen Custard, Toasted Ravioli, Vess soda, and STL style barbeque, it also boasts Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Lebanese, Mexican, Brazilian, French, Italian, and Spanish cuisine. Wake Forest does boast a few good restaraunts, that are by no means eclectic or foreign but nonetheless solid. Twisted Forks, Milton's Pizza and Pasta, and Las Margaritas are among my personal favorites. Like any good ol' Southern town, it has plenty of Bojangles--home of sweet "tay" and and chicken biscuits.
I hope that over the next few weeks I will discover the history of Wake Forest along with little treasures of singularity here and there. The history is by no means stellar but is interesting, as I try to imagine what it would be like to grow up in the 10-year-old town before the Civil War. It was founded in 1820 by Dr. Calvin Jones. He advertised the community in the local paper as:
The town grew up around Wake Forest College, which relocated to Winston-Salem in 1956 (hence the confusion among my WS friends) and sold the campus to the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Oh, and it also grew up around railroad tracks that are still here. I've had to stop for trains several times this summer.
I suppose I'll go to Raleigh more to regain a city flavor.
I am currently residing in Wake Forest, North Carolina. Apart from the desert San Pedro de Atacama in northern Chile, it's own of the most foreign places I've set foot in.
Let's do some compare and contrast 101.
St. Louis, Missouri, my hometown, is the 18th largest city in the United States with a population of over 2.7 million people (as of 2004). It has a lovely mixture of Civil War history with nice statues to commemorate it, national monuments (um, the Arch), good Anheuser-Busch beer, baseball fanatisism, and a pretty decent arts and music scene, spanning from classical to modern to british rock (MUSE!) To top it off, it boasts well over 15 varied, heterogenous suburbs with their own share of history, monuments, beer, baseball, and culture. Wake Forest, North Carolina, my family's new hometown, is far from well-known, large, or important. Here's a diagram to orient you:
With a population of 20,000 and most of the houses hidden by sheets of skinny pine trees, it's sometimes difficult to even spot a house. It boasts three main roads: Capitol, Main Street, and Highway 401. The downtown is a hodgepodge of quaint tearooms, Southern antique stores, a Chevrolet museum, and a handful of restaurants.
Downtown ----->
(top: view of corner downtown;
middle: shack and pretty tree
next to the bank downtown; bottom: cool bridge)
St. Louis houses over 30 Starbucks and a myriad of locally owned coffeehouses, not to metion Kaldi's, Kayak Coffee, and Cuppa Jo, to name a few. Wake Forest boasts 1 Starbucks (which is technically in northern Raleigh) and a suspicious "religious" coffehouse called "The Well" which provides "good fellowship" with each iced latte. It's good for quiet times but doesn't have the most exctiting atmosphere.
One of the biggest differences, as so astutely discoverd by Joseph S. Madden, is with the street names...which are normal, if not somewhat classy, in St. Louis. Washington Avenue, the Page Extension, Ladue Road, Creve Couer, Old Bonhomme, Clayton, and the like. Many names are French and don't allude to any specific object. Last names are of people are prevalent (I lived on Schulte Hill Drive, for example, whose namesake was an old patient of my mother's). Names here allude to natural objects and animals or are just plain odd. Gross, Bratt Street, Reindeer Moss, Stacked Stone, and Falls of Neuse Road among the butt of our STL guests' jokes.
And St. Louis food is...to...die...for. Home of the Gooey butter cake, Provel cheese, Imo's pizza, Ted Drewes Frozen Custard, Toasted Ravioli, Vess soda, and STL style barbeque, it also boasts Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Lebanese, Mexican, Brazilian, French, Italian, and Spanish cuisine. Wake Forest does boast a few good restaraunts, that are by no means eclectic or foreign but nonetheless solid. Twisted Forks, Milton's Pizza and Pasta, and Las Margaritas are among my personal favorites. Like any good ol' Southern town, it has plenty of Bojangles--home of sweet "tay" and and chicken biscuits.
I hope that over the next few weeks I will discover the history of Wake Forest along with little treasures of singularity here and there. The history is by no means stellar but is interesting, as I try to imagine what it would be like to grow up in the 10-year-old town before the Civil War. It was founded in 1820 by Dr. Calvin Jones. He advertised the community in the local paper as:
"One of the best neighborhoods in the state, the Forest District containing three schools and two well constructed and well filled meeting houses for Baptists and Methodists, and has a lawyer and a doctor. The inhabitants...are sober, moral and thriving in their circumstances, and not a few are educated and intelligent."
The town grew up around Wake Forest College, which relocated to Winston-Salem in 1956 (hence the confusion among my WS friends) and sold the campus to the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Oh, and it also grew up around railroad tracks that are still here. I've had to stop for trains several times this summer.
I suppose I'll go to Raleigh more to regain a city flavor.
Saturday, July 29, 2006
p.s.
this is in reference to my last post...something I didn't really make clear:
regaining your sense of wonder entails a transformation of thinking, not translocation. You don't have to move to Easter Island or the heart of a flourishing city. (It is just my personal priority that I see the whole world). In theory traveling sounds like a way to inundate yourself with new cultures and ideas, but it is possible to travel completely hostile to newness. (i.e. go to a nice resort and sit on the beach for a week, not that it isn't relaxing).
It's better to make yourself and open book. While my conservative religious upbringing has inculcated in me a susupicion of relativism, multiculturalism, and tolerance, I think these values are more than black and white. I think you can have and open mind, welcome new ideas, new cultures, and new lifestyles withtout losing your core identity and strongest beliefs. I can believe in God and be rooted in Christ's work for me but still be open to what's going on in my community, in the nation, and in the world. Ha, as Christians we're CALLED to be aware and intellectually active! It's strange that so many eschew this.
regaining your sense of wonder entails a transformation of thinking, not translocation. You don't have to move to Easter Island or the heart of a flourishing city. (It is just my personal priority that I see the whole world). In theory traveling sounds like a way to inundate yourself with new cultures and ideas, but it is possible to travel completely hostile to newness. (i.e. go to a nice resort and sit on the beach for a week, not that it isn't relaxing).
It's better to make yourself and open book. While my conservative religious upbringing has inculcated in me a susupicion of relativism, multiculturalism, and tolerance, I think these values are more than black and white. I think you can have and open mind, welcome new ideas, new cultures, and new lifestyles withtout losing your core identity and strongest beliefs. I can believe in God and be rooted in Christ's work for me but still be open to what's going on in my community, in the nation, and in the world. Ha, as Christians we're CALLED to be aware and intellectually active! It's strange that so many eschew this.
antigravity
I wonder at what point in this lifetime we lose our sense of wonder. Babies shove things in their mouths, tasting the world. Two-year olds grab anything and everything in sight, touching the world. Teenagers listen to sonorous music until their eardrums have disappeared altoghether, hearing the world. But it are the three-year olds who use all of their senses and reach for that sixth sense of understanding. They probe and inquire, challenging adults out of their complacency. Why should we be at ease in the suburbs? Why don't men fly? Why are spiders "scary" but puppies "cute?" Is it society that forms these prejudices, or are the characteristics inherenty in their chemistry that make spiders scary and puppies cute? Why? From whence? How?
Last summer I realized that I no longer enjoyed myself at waterparks. When I was eleven I stopped writing twisted short-stories based off of the adventures of my Barbie dolls. I think I began to lose my sense of wonder when I stopped using all of my senses...when I stopped creating things with my hands, when I started conceiving things with my mind, and when I stopped playing outside.
I have a deep-seated hatred for complacency...perhaps because I sense its stench in my own being. Routine, living comofortably, shopping at Wal-mart, and then thinking that this is all there is. A life of habit. Why don't we care more about what's happening in Lebanon? Why don't we read books about Hezbollah? Why don't we star-gaze and ponder the heavens?
What if there really are unchartered waters and undiscovered islands yet to be mapped out on the globe? What if Science really isn't the end-all-be-all in explanations for the cosmos?
Living in Wake Forest, North Carolina--away from the university, away from the city, and away from traditional learning--has nourished a desire within me to regain my sense of wonder. To slough off complacency, to know that there IS a larger, dangerous, beautiful and ugly world out there that is waiting for me. Both tangibly and philosophically...I've gotten too comfortable with my own preconceived notions of "what is" and "why it is" and I want to go back and challenge those notions.
Think like a child and don't take for granted that the sun will rise every morning.
Last summer I realized that I no longer enjoyed myself at waterparks. When I was eleven I stopped writing twisted short-stories based off of the adventures of my Barbie dolls. I think I began to lose my sense of wonder when I stopped using all of my senses...when I stopped creating things with my hands, when I started conceiving things with my mind, and when I stopped playing outside.
I have a deep-seated hatred for complacency...perhaps because I sense its stench in my own being. Routine, living comofortably, shopping at Wal-mart, and then thinking that this is all there is. A life of habit. Why don't we care more about what's happening in Lebanon? Why don't we read books about Hezbollah? Why don't we star-gaze and ponder the heavens?
What if there really are unchartered waters and undiscovered islands yet to be mapped out on the globe? What if Science really isn't the end-all-be-all in explanations for the cosmos?
Living in Wake Forest, North Carolina--away from the university, away from the city, and away from traditional learning--has nourished a desire within me to regain my sense of wonder. To slough off complacency, to know that there IS a larger, dangerous, beautiful and ugly world out there that is waiting for me. Both tangibly and philosophically...I've gotten too comfortable with my own preconceived notions of "what is" and "why it is" and I want to go back and challenge those notions.
Think like a child and don't take for granted that the sun will rise every morning.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
ings
regrettably, I have not written as much as I would ideally like. At times when i wake up in the morning all I can think about is writing, but for some strange reason I treat the impulse as a mosquito instead of a good desire. I guess i think more about writing than i actually write, which is the great difference between me--on and off, hot and cold--and a flourishing, successful novelist. Sometimes I think that writing would be my ideal dream job...if only i could find something to write about...something other than myself. Even my latest "novel" is based on random high school experiences...things that I really want to get down on paper, but things that I wish I had created in my own imagination.
I think I might give J53--Newswriting--a whirl this semester. Most people complain about the workload, but I figure if I treat the class as I would a hobby, it might become something enjoyable. There's something weird about the 'scholastic' psychology that makes me hate work when I have to do it.
Writing has a particular, specialized function in my life. Some people use it as a therapy, a means to bolster their self-esteem and justify their actions. )I have dabbled in this, but it only leaves a deeper hole). Some people use it to communicate--journalists, teachers, lovers, but I don't really care about who reads my writing. Some people use it to make sense of the world...they write things down and work with it until it makes sense and the world makes sense and their realizations come to life. Intellectuals, experts, philosophers. And some people write just because they're bored with the world and would rather create their own world. I might be straddling the latter two, partiallly, but I think I use writing as a primary means to understand my own psychology. I write when I discover things about myself and the world--physical and spiritual-- and how I relate to it
On a completely different note, When a Man Loves a Woman is my new favorite movie.
I laughed a lot today. I don't think I've laughed this much in at least a year. I'd like to think that I was always the one to make my big sister laugh when i was little, but I think that nowadays she makes me laugh more. Maybe it's just the bizarre chemistry between us when we reminisce over childhoods oddities...we share a history and our quirkiness and wonderful sense of humor comes out more when we're together. at any rate, it was good tonight. Colleen's joeie de vivre is golden bright and fills the house when she's making dinner and chatting and even playing the harp. At any rate, it's good to laugh.
I think I might give J53--Newswriting--a whirl this semester. Most people complain about the workload, but I figure if I treat the class as I would a hobby, it might become something enjoyable. There's something weird about the 'scholastic' psychology that makes me hate work when I have to do it.
Writing has a particular, specialized function in my life. Some people use it as a therapy, a means to bolster their self-esteem and justify their actions. )I have dabbled in this, but it only leaves a deeper hole). Some people use it to communicate--journalists, teachers, lovers, but I don't really care about who reads my writing. Some people use it to make sense of the world...they write things down and work with it until it makes sense and the world makes sense and their realizations come to life. Intellectuals, experts, philosophers. And some people write just because they're bored with the world and would rather create their own world. I might be straddling the latter two, partiallly, but I think I use writing as a primary means to understand my own psychology. I write when I discover things about myself and the world--physical and spiritual-- and how I relate to it
On a completely different note, When a Man Loves a Woman is my new favorite movie.
I laughed a lot today. I don't think I've laughed this much in at least a year. I'd like to think that I was always the one to make my big sister laugh when i was little, but I think that nowadays she makes me laugh more. Maybe it's just the bizarre chemistry between us when we reminisce over childhoods oddities...we share a history and our quirkiness and wonderful sense of humor comes out more when we're together. at any rate, it was good tonight. Colleen's joeie de vivre is golden bright and fills the house when she's making dinner and chatting and even playing the harp. At any rate, it's good to laugh.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
eureka
I was in Savannah for five and half days visiting Laura Fletcher, a fellow Christian and a prototypical friend. She embodies true godliness and I learn so much from her--not just in daily conversation but in the nitty gritty ways of life. She is authentic and real...I don't have to worry what she's thinking about and we can just sit and enjoy the solitude of a South Carolinian road trip. Those five days were wondeful for the time spent with her. I have returned refreshed with my heart redirected towards God's promises.
"Eureka" moment from the weekend: God is good. My hope for the present and future are rooted in what Christ has already done on the cross. I have been trying, and failing, to "fix" my sinful heart and come close to God on my own...which is futile, though that does not negate the importance of human responsibility or repentence. The unhappiness and dark depression of the past year are rooted in my stubborness and unwillingness to submit to God. Because I could only sense His powerful justice, I lived my life with a sense of foreboding guilt and self-flagellation. Why couldn't I "live up" to God's perfection? Why did I keep on screwing up? Why did no one love ME? Why did no one make ME happy?
For once, I have pondered this: what if the solution to all of my woes is not the vast improving of outward circumstances and relationships, but a redirected heart? What if I didn't NEED others' constant affection and approval to function in life? What if I didn't NEED to be happy?
Instead, I should be asking this: How can I embody God's perfection and holiness, keeping in mind that I fall short but not letting that conquer me? How can I keep on repenting when I screw up? How can I love God and others? How can I make others happy?
God is the reason I am joyful today. He is the reason that I'm not sitting on the dorm room floor crying, or meticulously crafting the "perfect" class schedule, or screaming at my parents. And what blows my mind is that I was DOING all of these things and wallowing in a world of meaninglessness that I had crafted--with the help of the world and the flesh and the devil--God SAVED me. He started to draw me back to Him even though I was writhing and biting and thrashing and clawing. It's like this:
In other words: 1. With consistence and persistence, i was living in sin. I created all sorts of idols for myself in high school...things like Experience and Individualism and Perfection that led to things like rebellion, depression, and problems with eating. These sinful tendencies are still there, but the difference is where my trust lays. The spiritual realm is very real and powerful, on both sides.
2. Such sinful living is universal. It is obviously manifested in different ways, but it is there nonetheless.
3. While I was still sinning God SAVED me because of His love. I didn't even want to turn to Him, but His love for me is not contingent upon my actions.
4. I died and was resurrected with Christ! He already knew where my struggles and failures would be, and he died with those specific things branded black on his flesh and then was raised without them. That's the importance of the resurrection! Christians are resurrected WITH Christ.
5. God is good; everything good is a result of God's grace. My purpose in life is to "do good works" only BECAUSE i am God's workmanship. not IN ORDER TO BE His child!
Glory be to God! Pray that God will continue to reveal His purpose for me and His goodness and love. Pray that I can persist in faith.
"Eureka" moment from the weekend: God is good. My hope for the present and future are rooted in what Christ has already done on the cross. I have been trying, and failing, to "fix" my sinful heart and come close to God on my own...which is futile, though that does not negate the importance of human responsibility or repentence. The unhappiness and dark depression of the past year are rooted in my stubborness and unwillingness to submit to God. Because I could only sense His powerful justice, I lived my life with a sense of foreboding guilt and self-flagellation. Why couldn't I "live up" to God's perfection? Why did I keep on screwing up? Why did no one love ME? Why did no one make ME happy?
For once, I have pondered this: what if the solution to all of my woes is not the vast improving of outward circumstances and relationships, but a redirected heart? What if I didn't NEED others' constant affection and approval to function in life? What if I didn't NEED to be happy?
Instead, I should be asking this: How can I embody God's perfection and holiness, keeping in mind that I fall short but not letting that conquer me? How can I keep on repenting when I screw up? How can I love God and others? How can I make others happy?
God is the reason I am joyful today. He is the reason that I'm not sitting on the dorm room floor crying, or meticulously crafting the "perfect" class schedule, or screaming at my parents. And what blows my mind is that I was DOING all of these things and wallowing in a world of meaninglessness that I had crafted--with the help of the world and the flesh and the devil--God SAVED me. He started to draw me back to Him even though I was writhing and biting and thrashing and clawing. It's like this:
1. As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.
2. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.
3. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
4. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
5. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Ephesians 2: 5-10
In other words: 1. With consistence and persistence, i was living in sin. I created all sorts of idols for myself in high school...things like Experience and Individualism and Perfection that led to things like rebellion, depression, and problems with eating. These sinful tendencies are still there, but the difference is where my trust lays. The spiritual realm is very real and powerful, on both sides.
2. Such sinful living is universal. It is obviously manifested in different ways, but it is there nonetheless.
3. While I was still sinning God SAVED me because of His love. I didn't even want to turn to Him, but His love for me is not contingent upon my actions.
4. I died and was resurrected with Christ! He already knew where my struggles and failures would be, and he died with those specific things branded black on his flesh and then was raised without them. That's the importance of the resurrection! Christians are resurrected WITH Christ.
5. God is good; everything good is a result of God's grace. My purpose in life is to "do good works" only BECAUSE i am God's workmanship. not IN ORDER TO BE His child!
Glory be to God! Pray that God will continue to reveal His purpose for me and His goodness and love. Pray that I can persist in faith.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
backgrounds
I NEED TO LEARN HTML!
gah.
i can't change the background color to black on the html template. i want this template, only with white text and a black background.
gah.
advice?
gah.
i can't change the background color to black on the html template. i want this template, only with white text and a black background.
gah.
advice?
Saturday, July 08, 2006
hitchin a ride
that's the name of the song i'm listening to right now as I let my windows media player randomly select songs out of a couple thousand songs buried in my computer's library. i have no idea who sings it. i don't particularly like it, either.
12:04 has rolled around. If i were a chilean I would be going to a discoteca right now, as everything opens at midnight. Maybe at heart I am chilean with regards to my night-owlship. I am at my peak at midnight. It's when my creative juices are rapidly flowing...I can spit out an eloquent greek history paper, i can read something and understand it with much more clarity...it's when i enjoy whatever state I am in: the moments of solitude are enjoyed ten-fold, the online conversations are multiplied by three and last three times as long, the physical companionship is drawn out until three or four a.m. (when joe or colleen or julie or carolyn or laura or any of my friends are at my side...tangibly). If I could choose, I would do everything at night. I would create a lifestyle conducive to the night...waking up at sunset and going to sleep right after sunrise. Why bother with oppressive heat and noise and traffic? Even the colors are overexposed...photography is much more practical at sunrise, sunset...and much more intruiging at night. night runs and night dips in the lake and night conversations on the rooftop. duh, they wouldn't happen every evening...but when compared to high noon runs (=heat exhaustion, death) and high noon dips in the lake (=exposed, vigilant, sun-burned) and high noon lunch conversations (=hurried, rushed, long lines), the night is preferable. nights are when daytime hermits grow into butterflies.
and so for now, i will continue sitting on the screened in porch with my windows media players selecting songs for my listening. i will continue editing photos of chicken salad and millipedes and little boys' rosy cheeks. and maybe when i feel like leaving the porch, i will finish book number nine.
12:04 has rolled around. If i were a chilean I would be going to a discoteca right now, as everything opens at midnight. Maybe at heart I am chilean with regards to my night-owlship. I am at my peak at midnight. It's when my creative juices are rapidly flowing...I can spit out an eloquent greek history paper, i can read something and understand it with much more clarity...it's when i enjoy whatever state I am in: the moments of solitude are enjoyed ten-fold, the online conversations are multiplied by three and last three times as long, the physical companionship is drawn out until three or four a.m. (when joe or colleen or julie or carolyn or laura or any of my friends are at my side...tangibly). If I could choose, I would do everything at night. I would create a lifestyle conducive to the night...waking up at sunset and going to sleep right after sunrise. Why bother with oppressive heat and noise and traffic? Even the colors are overexposed...photography is much more practical at sunrise, sunset...and much more intruiging at night. night runs and night dips in the lake and night conversations on the rooftop. duh, they wouldn't happen every evening...but when compared to high noon runs (=heat exhaustion, death) and high noon dips in the lake (=exposed, vigilant, sun-burned) and high noon lunch conversations (=hurried, rushed, long lines), the night is preferable. nights are when daytime hermits grow into butterflies.
and so for now, i will continue sitting on the screened in porch with my windows media players selecting songs for my listening. i will continue editing photos of chicken salad and millipedes and little boys' rosy cheeks. and maybe when i feel like leaving the porch, i will finish book number nine.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
sundays
this will be short and narrative-like (for once) because i want to read my book, Bee Season.
Today was good. Today and yesterday coupled together were good, actually. I went to Christ Community for the first time in well over a month and a half, and it was so refreshing seeing every one again...Mary, Camilo, Sarah, Julie, Lizbeth Swayne, etc. Many members of this church feel like family members, even though i haven't spent loads of time with any single individual, save Laura and possibly Lizbeth Swayne. Maybe it's just the warmth and their candidness that creates that 'homey' environment. whenever I go to church i feel like my mind is cleared and 'reset,' and all the darkness is dispelled. Sometimes I wonder what heaven will be like...i'm 'refreshed' only one day a week, sometimes less if i'm lazy and bogged down...what will it be like to be perpetually renewed while basking in God's glory?
Anyways, I finally got to catch up with Meagan after church and we spent the afternoon on Franklin Street at UNC. That too, felt like home...eating at familiar restaurants, walking through UNC's beautiful upper quad and the arboretum, ending at Starbucks for some much-needed (free) water after battling the oppresive north carolina humidity. It was fun to dream a little bit; Meagan is the notorious planner and optimist and we started discussing study-abroad and getting apartments (and a dog? umm...agh?) junior year. She initiated it...but you know, it's fun to dream a bit. except for the dog. we'll have to see...
Then i went to work (work=no pay, no recognition, nada) at the DTH to write my captions. I was pretty pleased with this batch of photos. I shot the Hillsborough Last Friday festival, and it's quite fulfilling as a photographer to see things that i learned in Chile/J80/the morehead workshop spill over into my work...naturally and subconsciously. I'm back in the 'groove' with photojournalism again (screw Keena's advice about ncstate...bah) and am liking that i can control my camera and photo situations pretty well, compared to january when i was clueless. and it sounds cheezy and insincere, but i sincerely mean it when i say i am excited about what the next semester brings with photo-j. the work is really fulfilling. and i like macs.
we had another family meal tonight. afterwards i curled up in my grandpa's chair and read a bit and dabbled in sudoku while my dad perused through the washington post and my grandpa edited old poetry. it was really cozy and nice...how long has it been since i actually sat in the same room with my dad, let alone my grandpa? and reading instead of tv...when did this happen???? :)
at any rate, i'm thinking that this lack of a job thing might not be so bad after all. i'm finding (productive) ways to keep busy, and as hard as it is for me to not rely on school to dictate structure, i think it is important to learn how to rest. besides, i've got dozens of books waiting for me.
I'll end this here. I wonder what i'll do tomorrow.
Today was good. Today and yesterday coupled together were good, actually. I went to Christ Community for the first time in well over a month and a half, and it was so refreshing seeing every one again...Mary, Camilo, Sarah, Julie, Lizbeth Swayne, etc. Many members of this church feel like family members, even though i haven't spent loads of time with any single individual, save Laura and possibly Lizbeth Swayne. Maybe it's just the warmth and their candidness that creates that 'homey' environment. whenever I go to church i feel like my mind is cleared and 'reset,' and all the darkness is dispelled. Sometimes I wonder what heaven will be like...i'm 'refreshed' only one day a week, sometimes less if i'm lazy and bogged down...what will it be like to be perpetually renewed while basking in God's glory?
Anyways, I finally got to catch up with Meagan after church and we spent the afternoon on Franklin Street at UNC. That too, felt like home...eating at familiar restaurants, walking through UNC's beautiful upper quad and the arboretum, ending at Starbucks for some much-needed (free) water after battling the oppresive north carolina humidity. It was fun to dream a little bit; Meagan is the notorious planner and optimist and we started discussing study-abroad and getting apartments (and a dog? umm...agh?) junior year. She initiated it...but you know, it's fun to dream a bit. except for the dog. we'll have to see...
Then i went to work (work=no pay, no recognition, nada) at the DTH to write my captions. I was pretty pleased with this batch of photos. I shot the Hillsborough Last Friday festival, and it's quite fulfilling as a photographer to see things that i learned in Chile/J80/the morehead workshop spill over into my work...naturally and subconsciously. I'm back in the 'groove' with photojournalism again (screw Keena's advice about ncstate...bah) and am liking that i can control my camera and photo situations pretty well, compared to january when i was clueless. and it sounds cheezy and insincere, but i sincerely mean it when i say i am excited about what the next semester brings with photo-j. the work is really fulfilling. and i like macs.
we had another family meal tonight. afterwards i curled up in my grandpa's chair and read a bit and dabbled in sudoku while my dad perused through the washington post and my grandpa edited old poetry. it was really cozy and nice...how long has it been since i actually sat in the same room with my dad, let alone my grandpa? and reading instead of tv...when did this happen???? :)
at any rate, i'm thinking that this lack of a job thing might not be so bad after all. i'm finding (productive) ways to keep busy, and as hard as it is for me to not rely on school to dictate structure, i think it is important to learn how to rest. besides, i've got dozens of books waiting for me.
I'll end this here. I wonder what i'll do tomorrow.
Friday, June 30, 2006
things missed, part 1.
staying out past my bed-time.
nights of collective CD burnings n the Smith household.
ostensibly deep conversations.
exploring abandoned buildings with someone else.
night walks full of pleasurable discoveries and ancient treasures. with TWO photographers. or three.
feels like it's been forever
admittedly, i'm pretty nostalgic right now. i miss you like crazy jules. when i go on walks through the neighborhood i can't help but think of what we'd be discussing if you were here. college is supposed to be one of the most joyful times in life, supposedly, but i beg to differ. it's as absurd as astrology, which claims that all aries or all leos in the world have the same predetermined horoscope and attributes. it's not the time period that makes a stage of life great. hell, high school could have been the pits had i not had a a group of friends who all shared the same friends. i think it's the people in your life who determine it's course. maybe next year at this time i won't feel so fragmented...maybe i won't feel like i'm on the road to somewhere but not yet there...maybe i'll feel like i'm there. that's what high school was for me: there. even though i was unhappy and confused at times and undoubtedly had my share of teenage angst, i always had ju and john and karah and em. i had other fellow party poopers. and we had collective memories. that's the difference. that's what's absent now...that universalism. college lacks community: it's a haphazard hodgepodge of individuals, some driven and some driving themselves into the ground. summer only amplifies the individuality of college. and as much as i love talking on the phone, it's not the same as physically...being. with ju, with john, with em. breathing the same air, laying on the same couch while giving each other hand massages or back massages, taking in the same familiar surroundings...john's basement, jules' eclectic room. always a sense of place.
coldplay is singing it loud and clear: "the truth is, I miss you."
but i'm not going to let this dominate. that's why when nostalgia hits, i call you. that's why when i remember and feel myself getting sad, i write. i write you. that's why when i'm bored and wanting badly to talk to friends, i call. i call you, and i call new friends too, because i can't hide in the past.
already not yet.
i wonder if most of life is spent with one foot in the 'old' and one foot in the 'new.' there will be times when 80 percent of your body will be in the 'old' and 20 percent in the new. and vice versa. but always a split. i just hope it will meld together at some point...the old coming here. the new meeting the old.
so i'll pass the time...with reading, and writing, and photographing, and trying to find babysitting jobs. trying to meet more people, trying to cultivate those north carolina relationships that have already begun, trying to find new ones, and trying to not let my mind wander too far back into st. louis and high school.
here it goes.
coldplay is singing it loud and clear: "the truth is, I miss you."
but i'm not going to let this dominate. that's why when nostalgia hits, i call you. that's why when i remember and feel myself getting sad, i write. i write you. that's why when i'm bored and wanting badly to talk to friends, i call. i call you, and i call new friends too, because i can't hide in the past.
already not yet.
i wonder if most of life is spent with one foot in the 'old' and one foot in the 'new.' there will be times when 80 percent of your body will be in the 'old' and 20 percent in the new. and vice versa. but always a split. i just hope it will meld together at some point...the old coming here. the new meeting the old.
so i'll pass the time...with reading, and writing, and photographing, and trying to find babysitting jobs. trying to meet more people, trying to cultivate those north carolina relationships that have already begun, trying to find new ones, and trying to not let my mind wander too far back into st. louis and high school.
here it goes.
what and why and how i think.
i know i've been mentioning memories a lot, but it's a topic that's been on my mind lately. (no pun intended).
i wonder what constitutes a memory. why is it that certain inconsequential things stand out in my mind more so than the ostensibly 'important' events that one ought to remember...like birthdays, the first day of school, christmas morning? while turning onto burlington mills from capitol blvd today i was reminded of a drive i took with beth jaxon through the boonies near st. charles last may. I had my windows rolled down allowing that familiar, pungent woodsy smell to infiltrate my car. the wind was dampening my arm as i dangled it outide the rolled down window, 'flying,' the way jules taught me. beth an i had gotten horribly lost as we were driving from creve couer lake to my house and ended up following some windy path through the hills in the pitch blackness.
why that memory? i suppose it's because i had placed myself in a similar environment: windows down, same humid air, same time of night, same desolate countryside landscape, same pitch-darkness. and somewhere in the process my mind connected the tangible scenery with my slight nostalgia for st. louis and old summers that have now passed. for best friends and my sister and joe and beth.
i wondered if i realized then that that summer evening spent being lost with beth would be a memory. 95% of my day is gone forgotten, and i suppose 95% of my life is gone forgotten as well. (don't read into this too much...i'm not lamenting this, just speculating). it's like when you edit a photo on photoshop and then save the image, compressing all those pixels of information. the more you save, the more information is compressed and ultimately lost.
I don't remember events. I don't remember names or dates or facts. I remember moods...tones and colors and hues and emotions. I don't remember the content of those 'deep conversations,' but i remember that they were had...with the midnight sky, the cool breeze on my bare arms. i inhale the sweet second-hand smell of cloves, and jules' blonde hair is tangled. i am confused or blissfully happy and in love with st. louis, with summer, with spontaneity and idealism...for the moment, at least, even though they come back to haunt me.
I wonder what it takes to make something 'memorable.' what's in a memory?
better yet, what will i remember from this summer?
My first inclination is this: I will not remember very much if I spend much more time alone. Those st. louis memories...those high school memories...those childhood memories...the strongest and sweetest ones deal with best friends or my sister. interactions...because when you're with other people they introduce new concepts and tecnhiques and preferences and flavors into your life which are worthy of being recorded in your mind. why remember the times sitting in your room, bored, and watching t.v. to pass the time? why remember the mundane and the monotonous?
and when i do remember monotony...i remember writing karah or jules a flowery note on a tattered piece of notebook paper in geometry class. i remember what i was thinking about, rather, who i was thinking about, to break up the monotony.
if i were stranded on an island, i wonder what kinds of memories i would have. i wonder if i would talk to the dolphins and the coconut trees and draw pictures in the sand.
i wonder what constitutes a memory. why is it that certain inconsequential things stand out in my mind more so than the ostensibly 'important' events that one ought to remember...like birthdays, the first day of school, christmas morning? while turning onto burlington mills from capitol blvd today i was reminded of a drive i took with beth jaxon through the boonies near st. charles last may. I had my windows rolled down allowing that familiar, pungent woodsy smell to infiltrate my car. the wind was dampening my arm as i dangled it outide the rolled down window, 'flying,' the way jules taught me. beth an i had gotten horribly lost as we were driving from creve couer lake to my house and ended up following some windy path through the hills in the pitch blackness.
why that memory? i suppose it's because i had placed myself in a similar environment: windows down, same humid air, same time of night, same desolate countryside landscape, same pitch-darkness. and somewhere in the process my mind connected the tangible scenery with my slight nostalgia for st. louis and old summers that have now passed. for best friends and my sister and joe and beth.
i wondered if i realized then that that summer evening spent being lost with beth would be a memory. 95% of my day is gone forgotten, and i suppose 95% of my life is gone forgotten as well. (don't read into this too much...i'm not lamenting this, just speculating). it's like when you edit a photo on photoshop and then save the image, compressing all those pixels of information. the more you save, the more information is compressed and ultimately lost.
I don't remember events. I don't remember names or dates or facts. I remember moods...tones and colors and hues and emotions. I don't remember the content of those 'deep conversations,' but i remember that they were had...with the midnight sky, the cool breeze on my bare arms. i inhale the sweet second-hand smell of cloves, and jules' blonde hair is tangled. i am confused or blissfully happy and in love with st. louis, with summer, with spontaneity and idealism...for the moment, at least, even though they come back to haunt me.
I wonder what it takes to make something 'memorable.' what's in a memory?
better yet, what will i remember from this summer?
My first inclination is this: I will not remember very much if I spend much more time alone. Those st. louis memories...those high school memories...those childhood memories...the strongest and sweetest ones deal with best friends or my sister. interactions...because when you're with other people they introduce new concepts and tecnhiques and preferences and flavors into your life which are worthy of being recorded in your mind. why remember the times sitting in your room, bored, and watching t.v. to pass the time? why remember the mundane and the monotonous?
and when i do remember monotony...i remember writing karah or jules a flowery note on a tattered piece of notebook paper in geometry class. i remember what i was thinking about, rather, who i was thinking about, to break up the monotony.
if i were stranded on an island, i wonder what kinds of memories i would have. i wonder if i would talk to the dolphins and the coconut trees and draw pictures in the sand.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
alcachofas
I was first introduced to the artichoke in Andalucia. Rosario put a china bowl of lentil and artichoke soup in front of me, and I remember asking her what the weird leafy things protruding through the surface's layer of film were.
"Son alchachofas. No comas la parte dura."
Well, I did eat the hard part. And I nearly choked on it.
I've only known artichokes as alcachofas. Even now, when I request them for dinner I have to stop for a split-second to think of how the word translates into english. Alcachofa is just so much more fitting than artichoke. i like the way it rolls off my toungue with effort... 'oomph'...how i have to form four different shapes with my lips to get the word out. Al-CA-CHO-FA.
The second time I ate artichokes was in Chile. In fact, the only times i've eaten them have been in the context of spanish-speaking countries. Andrea made artichoke a couple of weeks ago at her mother's house in Las Condes, and i was one of the only dinner guests who knew how to properly eat them, thank you very much. How entertaining it was to watch Jay, an overgrown thirty-year-old with a red beard, discover the joy of artichokes. First the confusion..."how do you eat these goddamn things?"...then the look of disgust as Andrea makes chilean mayonaise dip in front of him. Then the first tentative bite...and then the next one, a bit more enthusiastic. it's a complicated process...especially when you reach the heart. andrea cut it up for him, and airplane-fed the heart into his mouth. I think he was wearing a bib.
He had three artichokes.
It took him an hour to eat them.
When I stumbled across Pablo Neruda's "Oda al Alcachofa," I wasn't the least bit surprised. It's no wonder I connote the Spanish language and culture with artichokes...Pablo Neruda, Chile's national poet, emblemized the alcahofa, turning it into the vegetable of all spanish-speaking peoples (in my opinion).
perhaps i'll write a song and make lyrics out of his poem. :) :) :)
Ode to an Artichoke:
The artichoke
With a tender heart
Dressed up like a warrior,
Standing at attention, it built
A small helmet
Under its scales
It remained
Unshakeable,
By its side
The crazy vegetables
Uncurled
Their tendrills and leaf-crowns,
Throbbing bulbs,
In the sub-soil
The carrot
With its red mustaches
Was sleeping,
The grapevine
Hung out to dry its branches
Through which the wine will rise,
The cabbage
Dedicated itself
To trying on skirts,
The oregano
To perfuming the world,
And the sweet
Artichoke
There in the garden,
Dressed like a warrior,
Burnished
Like a proud
Pomegrante.
And one day
Side by side
In big wicker baskets
Walking through the market
To realize their dream
The artichoke army
In formation.
Never was it so military
Like on parade.
The men
In their white shirts
Among the vegetables
Were
The Marshals
Of the artichokes
Lines in close order
Command voices,
And the bang
Of a falling box.
But
Then
Maria
Comes
With her basket
She chooses
An artichoke,
She's not afraid of it.
She examines it, she observes it
Up against the light like it was an egg,
She buys it,
She mixes it up
In her handbag
With a pair of shoes
With a cabbage head and a
Bottle
Of vinegar
Until
She enters the kitchen
And submerges it in a pot.
Thus ends
In peace
This career
Of the armed vegetable
Which is called an artichoke,
Then
Scale by scale,
We strip off
The delicacy
And eat
The peaceful mush
Of its green heart.
"Son alchachofas. No comas la parte dura."
Well, I did eat the hard part. And I nearly choked on it.
I've only known artichokes as alcachofas. Even now, when I request them for dinner I have to stop for a split-second to think of how the word translates into english. Alcachofa is just so much more fitting than artichoke. i like the way it rolls off my toungue with effort... 'oomph'...how i have to form four different shapes with my lips to get the word out. Al-CA-CHO-FA.
The second time I ate artichokes was in Chile. In fact, the only times i've eaten them have been in the context of spanish-speaking countries. Andrea made artichoke a couple of weeks ago at her mother's house in Las Condes, and i was one of the only dinner guests who knew how to properly eat them, thank you very much. How entertaining it was to watch Jay, an overgrown thirty-year-old with a red beard, discover the joy of artichokes. First the confusion..."how do you eat these goddamn things?"...then the look of disgust as Andrea makes chilean mayonaise dip in front of him. Then the first tentative bite...and then the next one, a bit more enthusiastic. it's a complicated process...especially when you reach the heart. andrea cut it up for him, and airplane-fed the heart into his mouth. I think he was wearing a bib.
He had three artichokes.
It took him an hour to eat them.
When I stumbled across Pablo Neruda's "Oda al Alcachofa," I wasn't the least bit surprised. It's no wonder I connote the Spanish language and culture with artichokes...Pablo Neruda, Chile's national poet, emblemized the alcahofa, turning it into the vegetable of all spanish-speaking peoples (in my opinion).
perhaps i'll write a song and make lyrics out of his poem. :) :) :)
Ode to an Artichoke:
The artichoke
With a tender heart
Dressed up like a warrior,
Standing at attention, it built
A small helmet
Under its scales
It remained
Unshakeable,
By its side
The crazy vegetables
Uncurled
Their tendrills and leaf-crowns,
Throbbing bulbs,
In the sub-soil
The carrot
With its red mustaches
Was sleeping,
The grapevine
Hung out to dry its branches
Through which the wine will rise,
The cabbage
Dedicated itself
To trying on skirts,
The oregano
To perfuming the world,
And the sweet
Artichoke
There in the garden,
Dressed like a warrior,
Burnished
Like a proud
Pomegrante.
And one day
Side by side
In big wicker baskets
Walking through the market
To realize their dream
The artichoke army
In formation.
Never was it so military
Like on parade.
The men
In their white shirts
Among the vegetables
Were
The Marshals
Of the artichokes
Lines in close order
Command voices,
And the bang
Of a falling box.
But
Then
Maria
Comes
With her basket
She chooses
An artichoke,
She's not afraid of it.
She examines it, she observes it
Up against the light like it was an egg,
She buys it,
She mixes it up
In her handbag
With a pair of shoes
With a cabbage head and a
Bottle
Of vinegar
Until
She enters the kitchen
And submerges it in a pot.
Thus ends
In peace
This career
Of the armed vegetable
Which is called an artichoke,
Then
Scale by scale,
We strip off
The delicacy
And eat
The peaceful mush
Of its green heart.
old portraits
"memories are like a still life painted by ten different student artists: some will be blue-based; others red; some will be as stark as Picasso and others as rich as Rembrandt; some will be foreshortened and others distant. Recollectionas are in the eye of the beholder; no wo held up side by side will ever quite match."
********************************************************************************
It is singular how soon we lose the impression of what ceases to be constantly before us. A year impairs, a luster obliterates. There is little distinct left without an effort of memory, then indeed the lights are rekindled for a moment - but who can be sure that the Imagination is not the torch-bearer? ~Lord Byron
**********************************************************************************
i just finished a thought-provoking book that dealt with memory as an underlying theme. memory, in it's ephemeral state...it is fragmented and not empirical, but we define our lives based off of those fragments, treating them as objectivity.
it's strange, the things we remember. a memory is never a video filmstrip. it's not even a photograph...perhaps just bits of a photograph. a flowery scent, an off-key note, the silhouette of a long-lost friend. we can't force ourselves to remember; a memory is a separate entity with its own soul and its own volition. it chooses when it wants to resurface, however belated or inopportune that moment may be.
********************************************************************************
It is singular how soon we lose the impression of what ceases to be constantly before us. A year impairs, a luster obliterates. There is little distinct left without an effort of memory, then indeed the lights are rekindled for a moment - but who can be sure that the Imagination is not the torch-bearer? ~Lord Byron
**********************************************************************************
i just finished a thought-provoking book that dealt with memory as an underlying theme. memory, in it's ephemeral state...it is fragmented and not empirical, but we define our lives based off of those fragments, treating them as objectivity.
it's strange, the things we remember. a memory is never a video filmstrip. it's not even a photograph...perhaps just bits of a photograph. a flowery scent, an off-key note, the silhouette of a long-lost friend. we can't force ourselves to remember; a memory is a separate entity with its own soul and its own volition. it chooses when it wants to resurface, however belated or inopportune that moment may be.
Sunday, June 25, 2006
things or not
you can boil your life down to a single suitcase, if you desperately have to. Ask yourself what you really need, and it won't be what you imagine--you will easily toss aside unfinished work, and bills, and your daily calendar to make room for the pair of flannel pajamas you wear when it rains; and the stone your child gave you that is shaped like a heart; and the battered paperback you revisit every April, because it was what you were reading the first time you were in love. It turns out that what's important is not everythig that youve accumulated all these years, but those few things you can carry with you.
--jodi picoult
--jodi picoult
Saturday, June 24, 2006
straddling many spheres
my mind is on overload, but for once it is externally and not internally motivated. there is so much to write about...because there is so much to explore. not in a tangible way, necessarily. so many thoughts germinated in chile, but I never had the time or privacy to allow those thoughts to maturate.
And so right now I am torn between two opposing spheres--I want to sit down in a quiet, private haven for hours on end to write....write about chile, photography, aspirations, evolving dreams and emotions...try to put my finger around the chilean culture and the chilean people and my experience with that. and then the other side of me wants to soak up everything that is happening right now. I want to revel in the privacy and familiarity of my room, albeit "mine" for only three days. i want to feel the sweat on my body from lifting boxes on end up the stairs. I want to feel the childish anticipation that is concomitant with opening a box and wondering what the hell is inside. and oh how i crave reality and normalcy. flirting online, facebooking, reading the da vinci code and watching movies. things i couldn't really do in chile...things i couldn't fully do in college. it's not so much the 'actions' that are giving me a thrill right now...it's more the place where they're being done. HOME. my new north carolina home. strange how it slowly became home over the course of nine months.
oh, and how badly i want to photograph everything that is happening under my nose! today, for example, grandma was laying on her back on the couch with her legs crossed and bouncing up and down. she was talking on the phone and smiling broadly...it was just a picture perfect moment. i think about photographing the rooms in this house,composing portraits of my grandparents, documenting the feel of life here...which transcends more than the 'happy' moments. like the look of nostalgia on grandpa's face when he gazes outside from the screened in porch. i wonder what he is thinking about...there is such a sense of longing, or restlessness. i feel like this is singular and momentous time that i am experiencing right now...and i want so badly to document it. if only i had a camera....or could find my gosh darn charger for my dinky little point and shoot. (reminds herself: it's not the equipment, it's not the equipment. good photographers don't need fancy tools.)
coming back from a foreign country is such a singular feeling. for me, at least, it's sort of a surreal, in limbo state. the two spheres return: on the one hand, I am ecstatic to be back to familiarity, normalcy, and comfort. eating what i like, knowing the rules of decorum and common courtesy, being able to shut myself in my room for a couple of hours to read, watch a movie, or use the internet at my leisure. on the other hand, i miss many aspects of chile. not the country itself, but the sensation of being immersed in another culture. actually, i mostly miss the journalism culture...which is indeed a culture in and of itself. photography, photoshp, webdesign, audiostories, photostories, content gathering, the arduous work and meticulous attention...all of the aspects are foreign to family and friends. such is life...not everyone can understand what you do and why you like it and what it entails. and while i suppose many people are dumbfounded as to how i could be so unhappy while in chile...so gloomy with regards to my relationship to photography, to journalism, and to my colleagues...and then how my demeanor could so drastically change here to optimistic. i suppose part of it is my romanticist tendencies...i can pick and choose what i want to remember from chile. yet another part is that i'm so ecstatic to be settled, at a home, and at MY home, that i can look back on the turn of events with optimism and ocntendness. and then the rest of it remains as such: though chile wasn't always fun, it wasn't supposed to be all smiles 24-7. it was a learning lab and a learning experience...and perhaps the longing and homesickness God placed within me was meant to prepare me for north carolina and these present circumstances.
i will end this entry here, for brevity's sake.
buenas noches and goodnight.
And so right now I am torn between two opposing spheres--I want to sit down in a quiet, private haven for hours on end to write....write about chile, photography, aspirations, evolving dreams and emotions...try to put my finger around the chilean culture and the chilean people and my experience with that. and then the other side of me wants to soak up everything that is happening right now. I want to revel in the privacy and familiarity of my room, albeit "mine" for only three days. i want to feel the sweat on my body from lifting boxes on end up the stairs. I want to feel the childish anticipation that is concomitant with opening a box and wondering what the hell is inside. and oh how i crave reality and normalcy. flirting online, facebooking, reading the da vinci code and watching movies. things i couldn't really do in chile...things i couldn't fully do in college. it's not so much the 'actions' that are giving me a thrill right now...it's more the place where they're being done. HOME. my new north carolina home. strange how it slowly became home over the course of nine months.
oh, and how badly i want to photograph everything that is happening under my nose! today, for example, grandma was laying on her back on the couch with her legs crossed and bouncing up and down. she was talking on the phone and smiling broadly...it was just a picture perfect moment. i think about photographing the rooms in this house,composing portraits of my grandparents, documenting the feel of life here...which transcends more than the 'happy' moments. like the look of nostalgia on grandpa's face when he gazes outside from the screened in porch. i wonder what he is thinking about...there is such a sense of longing, or restlessness. i feel like this is singular and momentous time that i am experiencing right now...and i want so badly to document it. if only i had a camera....or could find my gosh darn charger for my dinky little point and shoot. (reminds herself: it's not the equipment, it's not the equipment. good photographers don't need fancy tools.)
coming back from a foreign country is such a singular feeling. for me, at least, it's sort of a surreal, in limbo state. the two spheres return: on the one hand, I am ecstatic to be back to familiarity, normalcy, and comfort. eating what i like, knowing the rules of decorum and common courtesy, being able to shut myself in my room for a couple of hours to read, watch a movie, or use the internet at my leisure. on the other hand, i miss many aspects of chile. not the country itself, but the sensation of being immersed in another culture. actually, i mostly miss the journalism culture...which is indeed a culture in and of itself. photography, photoshp, webdesign, audiostories, photostories, content gathering, the arduous work and meticulous attention...all of the aspects are foreign to family and friends. such is life...not everyone can understand what you do and why you like it and what it entails. and while i suppose many people are dumbfounded as to how i could be so unhappy while in chile...so gloomy with regards to my relationship to photography, to journalism, and to my colleagues...and then how my demeanor could so drastically change here to optimistic. i suppose part of it is my romanticist tendencies...i can pick and choose what i want to remember from chile. yet another part is that i'm so ecstatic to be settled, at a home, and at MY home, that i can look back on the turn of events with optimism and ocntendness. and then the rest of it remains as such: though chile wasn't always fun, it wasn't supposed to be all smiles 24-7. it was a learning lab and a learning experience...and perhaps the longing and homesickness God placed within me was meant to prepare me for north carolina and these present circumstances.
i will end this entry here, for brevity's sake.
buenas noches and goodnight.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
update, as if life was on hold.
i ought to be writing a book as opposed to a blog post, as i don´t know where to begin. i have too many thoughts, too many experiences. my brain is thinking visually, spatially, audially...anything but in written form. i could discuss long hours in the newsroom spent imaging, sequencing, splicing, captioning, and saving for web design. i could discuss everything that happens afterwards...the discotecas, the piscolas, the carretes, the madrugadas. sights...the desert or santiago? smog. andes. flamingos. photography. splash pages, maya, 3d design, adobe rgb. jargon suffices, indeed.
and then there´s all the stuff that can´t be documented in word or photograph but exists as mere growing experiences. learning how to work with an incompatible editor. learning how to live with seemingly incompatible roomates. and then seeing deeper. lesson of the day: people are more than skin-deep. those who seem most unlovable, most abrasive and unreachable, are usually the most beautiful. and all of life is a paradox.
but perhaps i´ll save that for later. perhaps i´ll write a book about this month. perhaps i´ll write it down in my chilean notebook with its graph paper lines. or maybe i´ll just keep it in my mind, like the rest of my memories that are aching to be put on paper but lie dormant until further notice.
and then there´s all the stuff that can´t be documented in word or photograph but exists as mere growing experiences. learning how to work with an incompatible editor. learning how to live with seemingly incompatible roomates. and then seeing deeper. lesson of the day: people are more than skin-deep. those who seem most unlovable, most abrasive and unreachable, are usually the most beautiful. and all of life is a paradox.
but perhaps i´ll save that for later. perhaps i´ll write a book about this month. perhaps i´ll write it down in my chilean notebook with its graph paper lines. or maybe i´ll just keep it in my mind, like the rest of my memories that are aching to be put on paper but lie dormant until further notice.
Friday, May 19, 2006
Atacama desert
The coastal Atacama desert is the driest in the world and almost totally barren. The landscape of the moon offers an obvious comparison, except that the Atacama has as its backdrop the towering Andes, which block tropical storms from the Amazon Basin to the east. There can be torrential rains in some areas of the desert, causing flash floods and sudden, ephemeral bursts of vegetation.
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
crisis delta change pivotal crucial defining.
crisis=turning point. a pivotal moment.
as defined by Religion 43 with Peter Kaufman.
yeah, so even though this resolution will inevitably fail (partly or wholly), i resolve to change my mood tomorrow. screw indiffernece. screw contradiction. i need to
STOP
THINKING AND
STOP
DWELLING AND
STOP
MUSING OVER THE SAME CRAP
over
and over
and over again
always the same crap
the same the same unchanging but apply different
forms of thinking
different methods
different
analizations.
ENOUGH.
bastante. no mas.
i just need to
DO
SOMETHING
anything
not everything
just one small thing
even if it is
ostensibly selfish and
for myself.
maybe i should be taking better care
of myself.
i wish i had a syringe filled with Motivation or Determination or Optimism to drown out all the Negative.
things that i could/can/and will do all/in part tomorrow/this week to pass the time:
-run 1 mile.
-go to borders and peruse through that book beth recommended
-compile creative cd's of wondeful emo music for matt and carolyn
-write bobby hill a letter and develop his pictures.
-call grandma ann.
-write rosario a letter...i don't want her to become just another "story" of mine...she's a real live PERSON and oh how much i would like to write to her to just maintain our relationship.
-go to the mall to get my glasses fixed.
-read about chile at borders.
a borders visit is in order.
and i really do want to get excited about chile.
as defined by Religion 43 with Peter Kaufman.
yeah, so even though this resolution will inevitably fail (partly or wholly), i resolve to change my mood tomorrow. screw indiffernece. screw contradiction. i need to
STOP
THINKING AND
STOP
DWELLING AND
STOP
MUSING OVER THE SAME CRAP
over
and over
and over again
always the same crap
the same the same unchanging but apply different
forms of thinking
different methods
different
analizations.
ENOUGH.
bastante. no mas.
i just need to
DO
SOMETHING
anything
not everything
just one small thing
even if it is
ostensibly selfish and
for myself.
maybe i should be taking better care
of myself.
i wish i had a syringe filled with Motivation or Determination or Optimism to drown out all the Negative.
things that i could/can/and will do all/in part tomorrow/this week to pass the time:
-run 1 mile.
-go to borders and peruse through that book beth recommended
-compile creative cd's of wondeful emo music for matt and carolyn
-write bobby hill a letter and develop his pictures.
-call grandma ann.
-write rosario a letter...i don't want her to become just another "story" of mine...she's a real live PERSON and oh how much i would like to write to her to just maintain our relationship.
-go to the mall to get my glasses fixed.
-read about chile at borders.
a borders visit is in order.
and i really do want to get excited about chile.
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