..commute

1. Made eye contact with a  homeless boy. He started swearing profusely at me/the world. It is a very strange feeling to invoke that amount of anger in a stranger.

2. Gave a man a cigarette because he asked  for one. He complimented my toes, hair, smile, and bike. I hate getting compliments when I  give people things. Perhaps its a way to repay  the  favor  but it  makes me really uncomfortable.

3. Almost was hit by a red sports car turning left onto a side street. He complimented my 'rig'. This form of flattery is also not appreciated. Please just apologize if you are going to scare me to death. 

..time/space

Recently time and space have been playing a shifting role in my life.

Ordinarily I never have enough time. Technically I have always had the same amount of time, 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, and 52 of those in a year. I am noticing the difference in time because of the speed of life I am living at. I am no longer weighed with 80 obligations that I will have to strategically balance to keep everyone happy, no longer plagued with to-do lists that never diminish in size. I stay up later, wake up later, go to the office when I want, and often plot very little of my life that actually happens according to plan. In all of the sticky summer looseness, I am finding that I am not becoming more relaxed, but simply more discontent. In reflecting on the year I found that I had little time to reflect. I was thinking a fair amount, but in a very removed and pragmatic way in order to solve problems and not waste any time. With the time allotted me this summer the little pangs of discontent get louder and I have become increasingly restless in my skin and circumstances. I have also been noticing lately that much of my life is ruled by time. I make decisions because they need to be made because there is a deadline. I think about my future because ‘it’s coming’ and I should be prepared before it gets here. With my head so far in the future, fine-tuning the details of my life, I tend to disregard the now, with its simple pleasures and profound foreshadowing of what the future may bring. Living a life with time as a propelling force makes next more important than now and tomorrow more important than yesterday. It seems as though it does a devastating disservice to my being and development.

Space has been different too. I got fairly organized over the school year, out of want and need. I clean my room more, am less of a pig, and see the real value in having an orderly space. Owen is also very tidy and systematic and working with him so closely for a year, I look to that as a standard of composure and effectiveness. All of that being true, my internship is a disaster. There are probably close to a million loose-leaf sheets of paper, layered on top of one another, collecting dust and my anger. It is a disaster and it is stressful. The other difficult part of the situation is that the room reflects its owner, so events like misplacing crucial notes for an executive attorney meeting happen.

This year, my life started out disorderly and chaotic and it has slowly been shifting away from that, in my organization and thinking. At times, I will come home and intentionally clean my room because I want to live into a more organized space in my life. Other times I would intentionally not clean because I needed a break from order and needed my space to reflect the confusion I was experience. I am looking forward to the day when I am no longer tidy but just live into it because the way I interact with the world is different.

Space is also reflective of my perspective on concepts. If when I think of church, I think of a building, it seems as though that community is relegated to a physical place and has little chance of making into any other part of my life. If I think of our community as this house that we live in it is reduced to activities in a common location and striped of the deeper meaning that it has between members. When I think of FareStart and the care that they placed on the material space of their classrooms and offices, it is obvious the care and concern they have for the dignity of the people that they are serving. Space is never more important than people but can almost palatably reflect the perception of them. This makes me really excited to have a house of my own.



Shallow:

I am dehydrated.

I have a very awkward set of tan lines on my back and I honestly don’t know how they took that shape. There are two horizontal lines, but I was only wearing one swimming suit. I don’t understand.

My sense of smell was very keen today.

..dog

The woman sways side to side
coddling the small warmth
that is wrapped in a blanket
and comforted by the love of her arms.
And she caresses and kisses and worries
about the state of the fragile receptor of her concern.
Today the New York Times made rape
a war crime.
Today raping a toddling child or a bent body became wrong.

The woman with the warmth and the concern
may(not) know this.
But in her moment, African rape is far from her.
Her heart and tears are for an easier love,
an animal that requires little of her humanity and anguish.
So she rocks her love with a breaking heart,
offering unrequited humanity to her pup.

And a raped African toddler pulls the humidity of the plain
close to her small body,
longing for the unrealized luxury of a small blanket
and tightening arms.

(Maybe) the rocking woman does(not) read the Times
or maybe her Blackberry does(not) have allowance
for another human or space for more than
feeding, watering, and walking.
(Maybe) youthful rape is too human,
far more broken of a life than her small love in the blanket
and (maybe) the papers and emails and voice-mails
demand more than the schedule will grant.


Working with my internship yesterday I discovered that dog owner are the most persistent political advocates in Seattle. At first I laughed but I don't really know what to think about this. I may(not) own a dog when I grow up. Certainly not it is an excuse to love.

..transition

Another school year has (almost) ended and I am at the tail-end of two essays that are just above the horizon. Change, like everything else, has been rampant over the last two weeks and I have been particularly interested in watching certain things in my life close. UI, small group, classes, Our House, Star Life, my family are all things that have been changing in my life as of late. As change has been present I have been noticing that change itself has been different. The goodbyes are much more like a saddened wave then an epic cry session. It seems to be much more natural and accepted as a common part of our evolution as people. So, change is very prevalent but it doesn't cause that same sense of acute pain in my chest anymore. 

I have been noticing a little that I have been growing up.  I was putting my sociology notes into a binder last night and noticed that Deviance (fall quarter) had pounds of doodles on the sides. The  papers were in  terrible condition and they were incredibly wrinkled, a mass of different sizes and tattered shapes. My theory notes (winter quarter) were much more organized, lacking doodles and stains. They were ordered and dated. More evidence that I am old: I put a top sheet on my bed. To most this is probably an anonymous action, having little more significance than extra laundry to do. For me it's a little bit more symbolic. When I was probably 12, I went over to my mom's friend's house and she was folding her laundry. She was awkwardly folding the bottom sheet and then asked if I used a top sheet on my bed. Embarrassed, I said no.  She then informed me that when I did start using a top sheet I would be grown up. Since then I have made the conscious choice to not use a bottom sheet but last night I bleached my bedding and  put the full set on.

All of this to say that I am walking into a new part of my life and I am excited and ready for it. I am going to be doing amazing work at my well paying internship which enables me to quit my barista job so that I can work on a paper with my professor. That sentence makes me so excited  and I am filled with a lot of peace because I feel ready for it.

(An aside: I have always been very conscious about giving myself time to transition in an out of places and  activities in my life.  This probably comes out of fear of a life disaster but I like it. It makes life less intense and far more 'organic'.)