..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'.)

..solutions

Sitting around tables is what I have been doing a lot as of late. Talking about problems. Talking about things that are broken. Talking about how I feel and what makes me angry and how I see things. I sit on a large nest of ideals and opinions that I incubate for a long while and then they hatch, and present themselves to the others present. Sometimes those incubated thoughts are small, perfectly developed birds, and other times they are awkward, gangly creatures that are missing limbs and terrifying to look at.

I have been here, doing the above activities in my house, UI, Scum, in my own head and I have been learning about how I want to 'be' in those scenarios. From observing others I have gathered that a.) complaining is ineffective, b.) ranting is always ineffective c.) speaking before you are able to articulate what you want to say is counterproductive to discussion d.) simply sharing your ideals does little to motivate finding a solution.

Making the observation of these behaviors in others I find that there are circumstances where I can justify a good rant that is inarticulate and based on being annoyed by people opposing my ideals. As for the basic meeting setting, I stand behind my list of 'ineffectives'. So this leaves me with a vacuum of space that I must fill with something.

Here are my thoughts:

1. If I am going to share what I am thinking/feeling about a situation, I should know what I am thinking/feeling about it. Some of the things that I have been historically bothered by are from areas of inadequacy in my life and they need to be dealt with as though they are my problems, because they are my problems. However, if I can articulate what I am thinking/feeling, I should. It is illuminating to my position on things and will allow me to feel as though I am being heard.

2. Often times my ideals don't need to be shared. Many of the people that I am talking to know what I believe on topics and to waste our lives together reviewing that would be sad. My ideals should underly everything I think, say, and do, making a discussion about them usually unnecessary.

3. My comments should always be based in solutions. When I complain (this should become more rare in my life) it should be with the intent of finding a solution. Making statements about things that bother me or things I believe are not very productive. They simply don't change situations. Statements that transform bothersome things and beliefs into action are productive. I have found that I am really only desiring to speak in corporate settings when my comments come with some sort of action to them.

So, I want to be about solutions. This is how I want to approach all of the tables in my life. This is why I am going to college, studying sociology and economics and urban things. I want to be able to think in the medium of solutions and convey them accurately, intelligently, and precisely.

That requires this of me:

1. Humility. I don't know everything. I know very little. If the solution to the problem doesn't match mine, that's ultimately okay if the problem was fixed. Perhaps this trumps my ideals as well.
2. Flexibility. Conversations require give and take and understanding. The world would be a disaster if it looked the way I wanted it to, that's why I should listen to people who see the world differently than me and be willing to actually act on their ideas.
3. Having a spirit of learning. If sociology has taught me anything it is that all effects are from a multitude of complex causes. People have reasons for doing what they do, it should be my job as a person to discover why they do that and learn how to work with them.
4. Means-Ends rationality. I must view the ends as equally as important as the means. Through the creation of solutions I should learn how to more acutely love people and understand how to listen to them more effectively. The means of every end prepare me for another set of means that are still on the horizon.
5. Listen to what people aren't saying. I am learning that often listening is most effective when you ask about the gaps, the spots they left out, and the little side comments that pepper so many of my interactions. Those small frailties of conversation often hold the most illuminating information.

..l.o.v.e.

I have never read I Kissed Dating Goodbye and to be honest, I never kissed dating goodbye for myself. This is the mentality that I was brought up with in reference to my sexuality, personal identity, and relations with 'the other'. (A side rant would talk about how this bullshit mentality rejects the labels and formality of dating, stigmatizes direct and clear communication in hopes to avoid any situation that might need labeling, and leads to this strange world called 'friendationships...'. However, this is not the topic.)

Part of the protect and prepare regiment that I was on was the making of 'the list'. The list was a concept that pushed me towards more distinct thinking about the characteristics I would desire in a future husband. At the age of 13 I was encouraged to think about it and by age 17, it seemed to have become a necessity overnight. I had always resisted the idea of writing down a bulleted column of relational wishes and necessary requirements for my future mate. If anything, the value of it today would be for comic relief and nothing else.

*My mother is not to blame for the above senerio. I honestly think she was a victim of many different factors in our environment and tried her best with little background of her own. She has since released me of all list-making and grandchild making which is a blessing that I am immensely grateful for.

So, I never made a list but the world of Christian dating/marriage has never left my life and has simply slowly increased with my time at SPU. Whatever.


These are my answers to questions that I hear people asking and that I ask for myself:


>>>I am afraid there will be a sense of finality when I get married. I will never be able to look towards the possibility of other people again and the person that I 'choose' will be it. Should I be concerned about this?:

I don't want to marry one person. I don't want to be one person. Growth, if I ever made a list, would be the only thing on it and that is what I desire in the person that I will share a lot of time with. The thought of being married to the exact same person for the rest of my life sounds terrible. The thought of being the same person for the rest of my life sound terrible as well. I would like to think that it is possible to fall in love with one person, dozens of times, if we both choose to be different people tomorrow then we are today.


>>>I will never have the experience of 'firsts' again. There will never be another first date, or another first kiss, or another flock of butterflies inhabiting my body. Should I be concerned about this?:

Invalid.

I noticed this trend a lot in my marriage and family class. It seemed as though people thought the beginning and end of love was found in marriage and that the caring capacity of your life would most fully be fulfilled through your family. I think that this is bullshit. We bind ourselves with limits to love and care that are artificial and limiting. I hope that when I get a chance to meet people that are amazing, I experience a lot of the same feelings as I did the first time I met 'the one'. I also hope that the first kiss I give my (foster)child or the first hug I give my parents-in-law will be filled with the same butterflies as my first taste of romance. I want to be 'in love' with life. To think that love is an experience that must be relegated to my marriage is a suffocating thought.


Needless to say, this is hypothetical. My hope is that I choose to be a little risky with what love and family look like because I think that God is found in the fringes and the deep breaths taken before leaps.

..shaped

Chapstick + riding a bike down by the canal = bugs on my lips.


We had some UI interviews today and they were great. Owen and I had talked about how our desire for them was that they be relaxed and a conversation. That meant that some where 15 minutes long and others went a little deeper but they were good. I started to realize that the more we laughed and the more we goofed around with each other the more comfortable the environment became. When we joked around about cats with the boy in a suit, it was fun, and in a lot of ways the strict lines and formalities of suits or ties faded away. This experience, in contrast to a conversation I had today started me thinking: are people really 'one way' (stubborn, arrogant, annoying, ect.) or do they simply conform to environment and experiences they are having. Within the conversation, there was a general assumption that the people that this person was working with were not interested in learning. They thought they knew a fair deal about the subject and were fine without the help of an authority. I know some of the people that were being referenced and had a very different understanding of who they were; passionate, driven, and convicted people. After talking about it some more, the experience that these people had been going through brought them to a place where being stubborn, seemingly arrogant, and distant seemed to be the only coping mechanism to navigate their experience.

Perhaps people's dispositions and attitudes have to do much more with the environment we invite them into then the people that they really are.

If we create an atmosphere where vulnerability in learning is respected and honored, maybe people will value learning.

If we create an experience where honesty and authenticity is prized, maybe people will tell us what they are really thinking.

If we create a place where a person's passions are praised and encouraged, maybe we will create passionate people.


The scary part of this is that it comes down to the nuts and bolts of life. It's in the glances and sighs and side comments and jokes that I so often overlook. I do think that it is exciting to look towards a place where people are given the chance to be themselves for the simple reason that they are really good.

(My simple prayer is that this is UI.)