i pray there is another way...

 

to be that desperate without fear

to be that thankful without relief

to trust without being forced

to be that close without sobbing

...to get there

and i pray that all of you who expecting me to be at your wedding give me enough time to get there by boat.  you have no idea how serious i am.

----------------

 

last night i wrote a long, and rather lovely, post about my time in London... and then the computer kicked me off the internet before i was finished. 

so i guess i'll take the hint and keep my secrets to myself.

and they are beautiful. 

 

tomorrow i am off to Wales and S Ireland.  Will write when i can.

 

  
                      

     "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better." -Samuel Beckett

    this picture is dedicated to:

     Sheri Wilson -and Kristin (who has been waiting for pictures for a long time)

     and Corey Wright -and Kristen (who deserves to know when i change my site-grin)

    *you make me close my eyes and smile like i have a secret far too important to share

           
                   
          

     time is running out like sand underneath my feet when i stand in the ocean... unstable.

     i have realized--once again-- how insanely lucky i am to know the friends i love.

     i have been an idiot so often and for so
long-- i pray you forgive me and remain patient with me while i try to
change that.

     (the only thing i can promise it that it will take a while)

    

     some of you lovelies have asked me for an
address in Tunisia to send me snail mail.  First- *thank you, i
would be floored to receive real mail

     second- no, i don't have an address yet. 
i won't get one until i get there, at which time i will promptly supply
you all with it.

     on that same note (which i have decided was B
flat) there is a good possibility that i will have some remnant of a
phone over there-

     who knew that T-mobile and Tunisia are friends?  apparently a lot of people, but not me. 

     Once again, i will be purchasing the phone there, so no number is avaliable as of yet. 

     many calls still need to be made... last
minute hostel reservations as well (i am having the worst time with the
irish train routes...this time i don't have      Jess Marinn
to understand it all for me).  the plan is: fly to London August
30, train to wales on Sept 3, ferry from Fishguard to Rosslare,
Southern      Ireland for a few days, ferry from
Rosslare to Cherbourg France on the...7th i think... train to Paris,
train to Marseille, ferry to Tunis,

     3 days in Tabarka away from any tourists, and
then meeting the family i'll be living with and starting classes on the
16th.  I am excited, but

     i am starting to get nervous.  oddly
enough not really about the trip (though the 10 hour flight is weighing
over me a bit) or even the planning     

     (though you all know it is not my forte... ha, it's not even my pianissimo)

     i am getting really nervous about my language
skills-- or lack there of.  i haven't done much in months, and
besides that, the dialect i've been  

     studying is a far cry from Tunisian Arabic
(they also speak French- of which i know 2 phrases- and have developed
a Frarabic much like our

     Spanglish), and i am rather concerned about
the heat.  remember me in texas?  yeah, my body isn't made
for humidity.  and Tunisia... well, did you

     see StarWars espisode I?  Remember the red, desert planet?  it was filmed there. 

    (sigh) i don't know what else to write. 
yesterday i was reminded just how desperately wicked and frail my heart
can be... i played my parents

     piano for an hour at least, pounding the keys
as if it counted as penance.  i play like crap when i'm
upset.  at least, that upset, crying over the black 

     and whites doesn't work very well for
me.  eventually it helped me breathe like i knew it would, the
rhythms provided something shadowing

     consistency... sometimes i just need music, you know?

     last night i went out with some people i have
not seen since the middle of high school...

     and i sang karaoke.  yeah... erin shute
with a michrophone in a room full of people she doesn't know singing
Billy Joel... you'd have been

     entertained, i guarantee it.   it is
liberating to make a fool of yourself.  We went
dancing afterwards (you'd have been proud).

    ...was invited camping this weekend but my heart
just couldn't take it... besides, my little hour glass really is
getting low...

 

    i leave in    3   d a y s

                                                  (503.428.1085)

          G*d bless Dr. Turner...
 
                   
this morning i went in to say my thank yous and goodbyes
                   
and he told me that he had taken care of some paperwork on my behalf
                   
and that Glory, Glory:

                        
                   
                   I officially have my BA

 

                                         
today i played poker

                                         
and hugged steph for the last time for a while

                                         
ryan called me

                                         
i missed sheri

                                         
my university told me that, indeed, that cartographiometry class i took
in the spring fills
                                                                          
my math requirement

                                                                
(and that my graduation is pending)

                                         
...i most unfortunately have tried in vain to get in touch with jen...

                                          
i have a meeting with Dr. Turner tomorrow at 9

                                         
i don't have drea's number because it is not listed on the alumni site

                                         
i keep seeing green cars that look just like Chris'

                                         
Yasmin made me smile

                                        
i finally wrote my cousin Caitlynn back (Joy, you very patient woman, yours is comming)

                                        
and even though there is so much more to be done and it doesn't feel
real yet,

                                        
i am so thankful...

 

                                                 

                                                              
12 days

 

 

 

     ...it has happened again.

     ...yes, again.

     what can I say?  it's just that time of year.

     ... ...my phone is broken.  I dropped
it on the road on the way to lunch between ballet and modern and the
screen is completely smashed and all the information stored in my phone
is un-view-able.  Please laugh at me now.  So *once again*
I'm going to need everyone's phone number, and you're all going to have
to be patient in hearing from me.  This comes at a particularly
bad time since I am in Houston with no way of getting home at the
moment, and I am leaving the country at the end of this month.  It's
true.  Just a reminder that you only have until the 30th to catch
me in the country, and since I no longer have a cell phone... i am
sorry that i always make these things so difficult.  do not feel
unloved.  ...i wanted to cry when i realized i was suddenly
without that precious tool.

 

                                                         
i love you all.

 

(regarding Houston... there are too many good things to say... words would taint them)

 

 

 

                my maps are down

 

 

There is no deep point to this post, it is finals week and I am procrastinating finishing my linguistics and holocaust lit exams

...I have been reading CS Lewis since I was young, his essays that is--i've actually yet to read the Chronicals of Narnia.  And over the past couple years I've come to see just how much of my worldview, theology, and mental lexicon has come from this mentorship... but lately i've been seeing it more and more each day.  I must say that I am truly thankful, that I can read his thoughts and find new wisdom in them regardless of the stage of my own perspectives... in any case, I'm just procrastinating, but isn't he grand?  Here are a couple short ones I can give you without my books (alas, they are all in boxes):

 

"It still remains true that no justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous."

--The Abolition of Man

 

"...art can teach without at all ceasing to be art."

--from a letter to "I.O. Evans"

 

"Love is something more stern and splendid than mere kindness."

--The Problem of Pain

 

"Those who would like the God of scripture to be more purely ethical, do not know what they ask."

--The Problem of Pain

 

"Thus, and not otherwise, the world was made. Either something or nothing must depend on individual choices."

--Perelandra

 

"Of all bad men religious bad men are the worst."

--Reflections on the Psalms

 

"Democracy demands that little men should not take big ones too seriously; it dies when it is full of little men who think they are big themselves."

--'Notes on the Way' Time and Tide

 

"In the moral sphere, every act of justice or charity involves putting ourselves in the other person's place and thus transcending our own competitive particularity."

--An Experiment in Criticism

 

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

 

[edit: ...it is 6.09... i am still up finishing work during what is hopefully my last all-nighter for school... today, today... today is my *last day at Western.  wow.  ...you have no idea how good that feels to say.  so.. let's just hope that i can get some serious adrenaline and make it through all my final exams today.  ...i'm not as young as i used to be, this is getting harder...]

 

I’ve been told my site is cryptic (apart from the obvious last post). 

But I’m not going to apologize… that is just the ways things are. 

So here's an the update:

 

 

14:10  ﻝﺎﺜﻣﺃ

Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no-one else can share its joy.

 

(Days…and weeks… of late have been, well, harder than I know how to admit.)

 

My heart has been in smaller pieces than I can ever remember

 

I have felt the pearls of my heart trampled by selves who did not understand, though they may have wanted to

 

I’ve been enduring hard conversations and harder silences

 

[things are not getting better with time]

 

It becomes harder and harder to pick up the phone or click “compose new mail”

 

My walls are getting whiter

 

I have divorced myself

                 I left candles burning overnight and while I was away twice

                Today is the first time in over a week that I have felt hungry

                Dropped a class

                Slept through another class

    I wake up each morning drenched with sweat as though the night has been an endless cycle of nightmares

               

It takes me at least an hour to get out of bed in the morning-no I’m not exaggerating

 

I got angry

 

I have felt more alone in the last month than I have since summers on campus-at least in equal weight

 

 

...and this is mercy

 

 

 Your mercy has to be just because Your truth has to be true  (Merton: Thoughts in Solitude, 60)

 

Hold on to your particular pain.  That too can take you to G*d  (Rumi: The Soul of Rumi, 174)

 

 

This is mercy because my heart can still break

 

And because there is One alone who can ever understand it all

 

Because those I love cannot fill everything

 

Because love is unconditional… and does cost you something

 

Because “silence teaches us to know reality by respecting it where words have defiled it” (Merton, 83)

 

Because time itself is arbitrary, pain so temporary teaches little, and brokenness is beautiful and productive

 

Because “as soon as you are really alone you are with G*d” (Merton, 117)

 

Because I am not trapped here

 

Because moving on and away from treasures –letting go—has never been my forte

 

Because “there is no heart so whole as a broken heart” (Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav)

 

Because I am not abandoned to myself

 

Because today I felt hungry

 

Because I am worth more than my academic pursuits

 

Because the class I slept through was cancelled

 

Because with each natural purging healing progresses

 

Because I could finally pick up my pen

 

Because today I was a little less sad than yesterday

 

Because I get out of bed each morning

 

Because I got angry

 

Because one “becomes a solitary at the moment when, no matter what may be his external surroundings, he is suddenly aware of his own inalienable solitude and sees that he will never be anything but solitary.  From that moment, solitude is not potential—it is actual” (Merton, 77)

 

Because this pain is beautiful to the One who loves me like the mess of my mangled feet after taking off my pointe shoes is beautiful to me

 

Because there is much for which to be thankful

 

 

 

There’s a shredding that’s really a healing, that makes you more alive (Rumi: This Battered Saucepan)

 

 

The solution to the problem of life is life itself.  Life is not attained by reasoning and analysis, but first of all by living.  For until we have begun to live our prudence has no material to work on.  And until we have begun to fail we have no way of working out our success (Merton, 74)