there is yet faith...

moving...

2011-02-02T11:47:00.001-08:00

kinda obsessed.

2011-01-29T15:56:00.001-08:00

keaton henson. so beautiful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kc-KKjZZCI

Immanuel: Some Thoughts on Encounter

2011-01-26T16:23:00.000-08:00

“The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation.”
T.S. Eliot, The Dry Salvages V

Back in December I was thinking about the irony of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” how we are calling God, whose very name means God with us, to come be with us. We are asking Him to fulfill the promise inherent in His name and be with us, to ransom Israel who is still captive, to save us from our lonely exile. Where is this God who promised to be with us always, even to the end of the age?

In church, we’re making our way through the commandments, and this week we talked about number three, taking God’s name in vain. I left thinking about a sometimes inscrutable God who has a million names. But through all these different names, God is trying to help our small human minds understand who he is. When He says “I am your Savior, King, Friend, and Comforter,” He is telling us, “See, this is who I am and this and this and this. Test me; call on my name; trust me; ask me to save you and I will still the storm; ask me to be your King and I will rule your life; ask me to be your Friend and I will walk with you; ask me to be your Comforter and I will bring you rest.”

And when He says “I am Immanuel” he means, “I am with you always; look for me.” These names are metaphor; they are promise; they hold within them the hope of relationship.

Two and a half weeks ago I was sitting on the wall at Butterfly Beach, writing in my journal with great effort about that awful stoppered up sensation: wordless, numb, with all passion and laughter and joy and sadness run dry. A few hours later I sat at the dinner table in the bungalow drinking potato cream soup with some beautiful women. I knew a few of them very well and the others just a little. But we ‘built each other’s houses,’ spent time looking into each other’s eyes, affirming and blessing each other.

In their words and eyes I saw what I had been missing all that day and for weeks beforehand, and a longing stirred in me for a similar passion to grip my being, too. These women have fire in their hearts and it spills out in everything they do: in their looking, in their speaking, in their living. Rilke’s prayer was my prayer that night:

I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for
may for once spring clear
without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one else ever has,
streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.

May what I do flow from me like a river. Those last few hours in California with dear friends and dear sisters, sharing meals and tea and chocolate cake and tears and a dance floor and four hours of wide-open space and ten thousand memories, my heart was brimming and breaking a thousand times over, and all I could say was thank you thank you thank you.

Those two days two weeks ago so many miles far have been swimming beneath the surface of my consciousness since I got here, restless till I could get my thoughts down on paper. On the plane, unpacking, learning new faces and new names, walking along the Thames…I was thinking of all those lonely days when I couldn’t wait to leave, and then the shift my last two days in California when grace crumbled the walls around my heart and let me see, feel all the things that should have been.

Then, when it feels most like you’re turning your back on something, leaving behind all the things you’ve lost on the road, God stops you and says “Wait, child. Stop running from ghosts and walk in the good way I have prepared for you.” That good way is the way of being, the practice of emptying yourself of restlessness and asking God to fulfill the promise of His name: to be here now. Only then, only when He has poured His endlessness into your small being can the fire spill from you like a river; only here, where eternity intersects human time, only now, in the moment of encounter, can healing happen.

I am beginning to understand now the importance of knowing the right names of things. Naming is a way of seeing; naming is a way of grounding oneself in the present; naming is encounter. Shannon used to tell me how she would learn the name of a plant then suddenly see it everywhere, in places she never noticed it before. Knowing the names of things and people helps us see them too, helps us acknowledge their presence, opens the way for not only encounter and significant interaction, but also surprise and miracle.

Rilke again:
Could we be here, then,
in order to say: house,
bridge, fountain, gate, pitcher, apple-tree, window…

And the things, even as they pass,
understand that we praise them.
Transient, they are trusting us
to save them—us, the most transient of all.

and

I want to love the things
As no one has thought to love them,
Until they’re worthy of you and real.

These things, then—love, naming, sight, living—they can only happen in the moments when God’s unconditional love breaks through the clouds of past and future and holds you there, at peace, then flows from you and through you, completely unstoppered.

God is answering my prayers. My heart is healing, the fear that paralyzed me has been burned away by the fire that has taken hold of my heart, and the only words that come to mind are thank you.

Rilke

2011-01-25T14:23:00.000-08:00

I’m too alone in the world, yet not alone enough
to make each hour holy.
I’m too small in the world, yet not small enough
to be simply in your presence, like a thing—
just as it is.

I want to know my own will
and to move with it.
And I want, in the hushed moments
when the nameless draws near,
to be among the wise ones—
or alone.

I want to mirror your immensity.
I want never to be too weak or too old
to bear the heavy, lurching image of you.

I want to unfold.
Let no place in me hold itself closed,
for where I am closed, I am false.
I want to stay clear in your sight.

I would describe myself
like a landscape I’ve studied
at length, in detail;
like a word I’m coming to understand;
like a pitcher I pour from at mealtime;
like my mother’s face;
like a ship that carried me
when the waters raged.

Malachi 3:10

2011-01-24T10:27:00.000-08:00

'Bring all the tithes into the store-house, that there may be food in my house, and prove me now with this,' says the LORD of hosts, 'if I will not open the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.'

God has been so good to me. so good.

In case you were wondering...

2011-01-23T11:45:00.000-08:00

Here's a small bit about where I live.

It's really amazing how different this place is from anything else I've known. It reminds me a little bit of parts of New York I've seen, but when it comes down to it, this place is completely unique. The first few days here, I was asking questions non-stop, trying to understand why things are the way they are.

Here is a little bit of what I've learned about this place: The neighborhood I am living in is East Ham in the Newham Borough (which is also known as the Olympic Borough, and the Olympic Stadium is only about a 15 minute drive north). This is the poorest borough in all of London, because it's made up mostly of immigrants and the working class. When people start earning money, they move somewhere nicer, so the borough remains populated by the poorest people in London. For the most part, the only people with college educations who live here are Christians or other social activists who want to see improvement in the borough.

Because this is the Olympic borough, however, a lot of money, time, and thought are being invested here, which is helping to generate local interest in and care for this place. The Olympic committee is hoping that the Olympics will be a catalyst for revitalization and long-term social changes in this borough. The Christian communities are praying for a huge spiritual revival as well, and it's really just an amazing time to be here...it's like we're on the threshold of something huge.

As I mentioned above, this borough is filled with immigrants, and I can walk down a crowded street and not see a single white person, hear ten different languages and accents as people pass me by, and pass droves of women dressed in saris. My neighborhood is mostly populated by Asians, which is confusing because that means Indian, South Indian, Indonesian, Saudi Arabian, etc., but also means alot of excellent food for very cheap (as well as a lot of really disgusting fried fast food). What we call Asian (i.e. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean), British people call Oriental.

The main religions here are Islam, Hinduism, and Sikhism, and it's not rare at all to see women walking down the street wearing burkas, so nothing shows except their eyes. I've also heard stories of men who refuse to shake hands with women because their religion won't allow them to.

What I've seen already about the Christian church here (particularly with the church I am working with--Plaistow Christian Fellowship) is that it seems to have more purpose and is a lot more missional than churches back home, probably because the Christians here know that they're a minority and can see in real ways every day how legalistic and destructive other religions can be. My church in particular is like a little family--they all take care of each other and know everyone's business and have all known each other for years and years. One new and really exciting and beautiful thing that is happening here is that four of the main churches in this area are seeking unity by having joint services every few weeks, and encouraging the people to pool resources in our work towards transforming Newham.

wow. this is what creating art is all about.

2011-01-20T13:01:00.000-08:00

so beautiful it makes me want to weep.

Makoto Fujimura: A Letter to a Young Artist

Well, here I am.

2011-01-12T10:39:00.000-08:00

London.

Technically, East Ham.

Some things of note:
It's definitely not as cold as I was expecting. Apparently we're having a bit of a warm streak: 54 degrees today.

Sitting in the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the street is WEIRD. From what I remember from my last visit here, it wasn't strange at all in a bus. But navigating these narrow narrow streets in a little car from the other side...so weird.

There are so many beautiful people here, so many different cultures, so few white people. The neighborhood I live in is inhabited mostly by Indians and black people, and walking down the street with my supervisor Jo we definitely stuck out--white and Chinese. So many different kinds of food to try also! Saudi Arabian, Indonesian, Lebanese, the list goes on and on.

Summer 2011: beekeeping! my supervisor has a hive in her backyard. excellent.

My American accent sticks out like a sore thumb, and every time I hear myself speak I cringe and stumble over my words because of how awful I sound. Also, British people sound smarter and have bigger vocabularies in general, and I have heard the words brilliant, jolly good, sorted, and reckon more times in the past 24 hours than I have in my entire life.

Homemade shepherd's pie for dinner last night. Delish.

Spotify: the British version of Pandora/Grooveshark but way better.

My supervisor's sixteen year old son Adam is precious. He talks and talks and talks, even with his slight lisp which is simply endearing. He's absolutely obsessed with Relient K these days, and yesterday was playing some old school songs on guitar I haven't heard since early high school. He and eight other kids in high school (or college as I think they call it here...) are starting a youth church program where the second week of each month they go to one of the four churches in this area and lead the service to promote youth involvement and unity between the churches.

Finally putting my English degree to good use! I'll be writing articles for a website that the crisis pregnancy center is launching later this year.

I haven't gone into the city yet, but tomorrow I have the day to myself: sleep in, explore the neighborhood...it will be lovely.

It's a bit strange to simply step into these people's daily lives like this. This is such a giant change for me, but just a small disturbance in normality for them. I've already been to a prayer meeting and spent seven hours at work today. And here I am, eating dinner at their table, hearing Adam talk about examinations and his mother worrying that's he going to fail Physics. What a strange little slice of life I've been witnessing.

Some things I had forgotten: the loo, radiators, take away, celsius...

Currently reading: Rilke's "The Book of Hours" and Donald Miller's "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years."

traveling on

2010-12-13T11:46:00.000-08:00

this is my last day in santa barbara.
all my worldly possessions are packed up in my car, ready and waiting for the four hour trip north.

the sun is shining. the sky is radiant deep perfect blue.
aka perfect walk weather.

I have two and a half wide-open hours before I leave.
and I am sitting here writing instead of taking one last look at my dear friends or campus or the ocean or any of the other places I have loved so deeply for so long.

strange.

I am not very sad at all about leaving.
it is time.

yes. very strange.

a week ago I was thinking about sight and the leaving and the living and then the coming back. how your sight changes each time. how no matter how often you revisit a scene and linger there, looking long, breathing deep, committing the curves and angles and colors and faces and laughs to memory, there is always something hidden that emerges from the woodwork and reminds you of how little you actually know of this place and people.

I haven't even left yet but what I miss is not this place or these people but the way we lived, all the promise and the hope. the time when all things were new, before the tired repetition and reenactments of the old things. what fills me with sadness is not the leaving but this feeling I can't shake that I am not leaving much behind.

good thing, at least, that I am traveling to a far distant land where no one knows my name and where I can start all this over.

and yet a friend of mine told me some things: to stop running away before I run out of places to run to, and even though the grass may seem greener on the other side, it's only greener where you water it.
true.
but the grass really is greener is England.

"Nothing Gold..."
Marilyn McEntyre

The road not taken is taken. Beyond the bend
it stretches on in the mind, well-traveled
as the one on which we set our feet.

An untold, imagined story
mingles with memory; actual
and possible paths cross and at each crossing
we pause, not to regret, but to remember
that to choose is to keep choosing.

The after-image of a face beyond a half-open door,
the felt warmth of a room beyond an uncrossed threshold,
the lingering sounds of a conversation that never happened,
leave their record, too, on the heart and in the bones:
fourth dimension of the life we choose and live.

You can lose what you never had--
mourn the unborn child,
the unspoken confession,
the friendship foreshadowed
that drifted away on the next tide.

You can lose what you only imagined having:
evening hours sipping wine over an open book;
walks that wind beyond the routes of responsibility,
the luxury of dailiness: "Oh, it's you again--
I wondered when you'd come."

The good-bye hard upon hello,
the embrace that renounces even as it receives,
the same breath caught in anticipation released
in resignation, confuse the opening heart.

By a strange mercy we are allowed
to practice the final paradox--to love and let go,
learning in each release to listen to the voice
that asks, "Do you see yet?" Do you see
how to love the wave already breaking
because it is a wave?
because it breaks?

The Song of No Coming and No Going

2010-12-10T00:18:00.000-08:00

Thich Nhat Hanh

When I left home, I was a child.
Now I return an old man.
Villagers still speak with the same accent,
but my hair and beard are completely white.
The village children see me but don't recognize me.
They look at each other and giggle,
"Where have you come from, old sir?"

Where have you come from, old sir?
"I have come from the same place you have,
yet you don't know there is a link between us."
I stroke my snow-white beard this morning.
The young leaves on the trees are new and green.
They see no link between themselves and the seed
that took root so many years ago on this very land.
Villagers still speak with the same accent,
but after so many years, the village has become your village.
To your puzzled eyes, I am only a strange, old visitor
arriving from some unknown world.
To come or to go, to depart or return--
who among us is not a wanderer?

Where have you come from, old sir?
You don't see. How could you?
Even if I sing to you the old songs I learned in the village,
I would still be a stranger in your eyes.
When I tell you, "This is my village,"
your eyes dance and you laugh.
And I laugh too, when you say I am just telling a story.

The bamboo trees, the riverbank, the village hall--
everything is still here.
They have changed, yet they haven't.
A new bamboo shoot, a new red-tiled roof,
a new small lane,
a new child--
What is the purpose of my return?
I don't know.

There is a haunting image of the past.
The traveler has no real point of departure
and no point of arrival.
Who is he, this explorer of the triple worlds?

As if to a former life--
the sweet potatoes and turnips, the hay, the cottage--
I come back to my village.
But those with whom I worked and sang
are strangers to those I find today.
Everywhere are the children,
the red-tiled roofs,
the narrow lanes--
The past and the future look at each other,
and the two shores suddenly become one.
The path of return continues the journey.

today I am a quintessential old woman

2010-12-07T14:19:00.000-08:00

sitting on the porch with aching muscles, a blanket spread across my knees, and needlework in my hands

Getting It Across. U.A. Fanthorpe.

2010-11-30T22:15:00.000-08:00

‘His disciples said unto him, Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now are we sure that thou knowest all things.’
St. John 16:29-30

This is the hard thing.
Not being God, the Son of Man,
—I was born for that part—
But patiently incising on these yokel faces,
Mystified, bored and mortal,
The vital mnemonics they never remember.

There is enough of Man in my God
For me to construe their frowns. I feel
The jaw-cracking yawns they try to hide
When out I come with one of my old
Chestnuts. Christ! Not that bloody
Sower again, they are saying, or God!
Not the Prodigal fucking Son.
Give us a new one, for Messiah’s sake.

They know my unknowable parables as well
As each other’s shaggy dog stories.
I say! I say! I say! There was this Samaritan,
This Philistine and this Roman…or
What did the high priest say
To the belly dancer? All they need
Is the cue for laughs. My sheep and goats,
Virgins, pigs, figtrees, loaves and lepers
Confuse them. Fishing, whether for fish or men,
Has unfitted them for analogy.

Yet these are my mouths. Through them only
Can I speak with Augustine, Aquinas, Martin, Paul
Regius Professors of Divinity,
And you, and you.
How can I cram the sense of Heaven’s kingdom
Into our pidgin-Aramaic quayside jargon?

I envy Moses, who could choose
The diuturnity of stone for waymarks
Between man and Me. He broke the tablets,
Of course. I too know the easy messages
Are the ones not worth transmitting;
But he could at least carve.
The prophets too, however luckless
Their lives and instructions, inscribed on wood,
Papyrus, walls, their jaundiced oracles.

I alone must write on flesh. Not even
The congenial face of my Baptist cousin,
My crooked affinity Judas, who understands,
Men who would give me accurately to the unborn
As if I were something simple, like bread.
But Pete, with his headband stuffed with fishhooks,
His gift for rushing in where angels wouldn’t,
Tom, for whom metaphor is anathema,
And James and John, who want the room at the top—
These numskulls are my medium. I called them.

I am tattooing God on their makeshift lives.
My Keystone Cops of disciples, always,
Running absurdly away, or lying ineptly,
Cutting off ears and falling into the water,
These Sancho Panzas must tread my Quixote life,
Dying ridiculous and undignified,
Flayed and stoned and crucified upside down.
They are the dear, the human, the dense, for whom
My message is. That might, had I not touched them,
Have died decent respectable upright deaths in bed.

weepies

2010-11-18T22:59:00.000-08:00

yesterday when you were young
everything you needed done was done for you
now you do it on your own but you find you're all alone
what can you do?

I know that you think you're not good for anything
the world makes you feel so small...
and oh isn't it strange how things can change you

isn't it strange how we change orbit in our lives?

no bread crumb trail to follow through your days

all it takes is a little faith and a lot of heart

we grow a lot faster than trees

2010-10-25T22:06:00.000-07:00

he said
so we miss a lot of stuff

I will try | Mary Oliver

2010-10-24T19:52:00.000-07:00

I will try.
I will step from the house to see what I see
and hear and I will praise it.
I did not come into this world
to be comforted.
I come, like red bird, to sing.
But I'm not red bird, with his head-mop of flame
and the red triangle of his mouth
full of tongue and whistles,
but a woman whose love has vanished
who thinks now, too much, of roots
and the dark places
where everything is simply holding on.
But this too, I believe, is a place
where God is keeping watch
until we rise, and step forth again and--
but wait. Be still. Listen!
Is it red bird? Or something
inside myself, singing?

-Mary Oliver

talked with an old old friend today

2010-10-22T12:50:00.000-07:00

who once knew me so well

he said
your words don't sound like yourself anymore

have the past few months really held so much change
that my cadences, the way I tie my words together
sound like a stranger's?

it seems that all my bridges have been burned but you say that's exactly how this grace thing works

2010-10-20T12:53:00.000-07:00

This morning I am thinking of the multiple faces of grace, one of which is traffic tickets.

First day of finals week my last semester after baking for thirteen hours straight for a bake sale and not sleeping and running on stress and anger I ran a stop sign on purpose. In all my four years of college, there has never been a cop at that intersection, but this time, the one time I didn’t stop, there he was, waiting for me.

I had planned on writing two papers that day, but spent an hour staring blankly at my computer screen through watery eyes. I packed my bag and walked and prayed, clutching a ball of tissues in my hand. Here I was, on the threshold of adulthood, wanting to prove myself strong and independent and responsible, and failing, so soon, so tangibly.

The tears subsided; I called my parents finally, and their voices and words held no judgment or blame or anger towards me, just grace, forgiveness, complete acceptance.

The past few days my mind has been an impossible knot of memories, images, emotions. The words that slip from my mouth reveal themselves to be half-truths, meaningless. But this story keeps surfacing in my subconscious, as though there is some metaphor within that will be the key to unraveling these lies, this knot in my head and my heart.

It seems this scene has been reenacted for me over and over in small ways the last few weeks. I am amazed by how thoughtlessly I hurt the ones I love the most, by my tendency to always say the wrong thing and leave so much undone. These people I have taken for granted, taken advantage of, treated unwell—they meet me daily, time and again, with so much grace, so much forgiveness, so much patience, loving me in spite of myself.

I am humbled. I deserve none of it. Even more, this grace leaves no room for guilt or shame or self-pity; instead, it makes room for healing and growth, pronounces you clean and lovely and perfect, even when you are bruised and bleeding, with scars of infidelity disfiguring your face.

Mumford and Sons, in concert. I expected to come out refreshed, renewed, and empowered; instead, I came out weary and emotionally drained, hanging fragilely to hope. With each song, they took my heart, ripped it into slivers, then pieced it back together again, singing truth that burrowed into the depths of me, calling up forgotten memories and emotions, ringing my soul. I prayed their lyrics as they sang, shades and layers of new meanings emerging and fading. Yet somehow, their words, their music felt too small for the room, the truth they were getting at too evasive, too large to fit into letters and words and sounds and chords. And it was too much for me to hold inside my small, fragile being, made me feel lost and little and afraid and lonely, paralyzed, incapable not only of living, but of facing anything—the world, home, my friends, myself. There is so little that I understand, so little that I can do; I cannot even look inside myself and into my past and understand who I am or how I have arrived here. What good can I bring to a world that is starved for significance?

But beneath it all, I can sense the Spirit at work. And I am seeing not only the mysteriousness of how she works, but the complicatedness, the paradox. I can feel the numbness slowly slipping away, replaced with something that feels sad and heavy and difficult but at least it is honest and real:

Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam’s curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

For Christ came to save the weak and wounded, the broken and the battered: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” Yesterday and today, I have been practicing being not okay, letting all the sadness and pain I have denied flood in. And I think I am beginning to catch a glimpse of the mystery, swallowing in small baby-sized bites of meaning these big inscrutable words—faithfulness and absolution and love and rest and peace.

Lord, I curl in Thy grey
gossamer hammock
that swings by one
elastic thread to thin
twigs that could, that should
break but don’t.

*

I do nothing, I give You
nothing. Yet You hold me

minute by minute
from falling.

Lord, you provide.

everybody's doing it...

2010-09-09T14:54:00.000-07:00

bucket list:

1. play all of Chopin's Nocturnes and Preludes
2. play jazz
3. live on Prince Edward Island in a house with a wrap-around porch
4. keep some bees
5. write a family history
6. document my grandparents' recipes
7. get on a bike again
8. make collages
9. make as many things as possible from scratch for a month: bread, jam, soap, clothes, paper, etc.
10. sew a quilt, maybe communally?
11. backpack through Europe
12. spend at least a few months in each of the following places: Northern Ireland, Portugal, Greece, the Pacific Northwest, San Francisco, Greenwich Village, my grandparents' village
13. cultivate my own little orchard/vineyard
14. laugh daily
15. sail
16. tattoo
17. purchase books from only local or used bookstores
18. speak Chinese fluently
19. write my own nocturne
20. furnish my home with findings from thrift stores and garage sales
21. drink one full cup of coffee
22. take photos and develop them myself in a darkroom
23. learn the art of book-binding
24. walk everywhere/use public transportation
25. live through the winter
26. wash feet in a Maundy Thursday service
27. attend a Pentecostal church service
28. open a community frozen yogurt coffeeshop

these grey days

2010-09-08T11:14:00.001-07:00

Suddenly it’s like winter. And with the turning of the weather comes a shift within me. This is what it feels like: dark grey cloud cover hanging low and ominous, pressing down on my head, releasing no rain; the walk back to Holland House through the long, dimly fluorescent-lit hallways and out into the penetrating cold that carved an aching hole in my center, between my ribs, below my heart; the lights in the trees that revealed the swirl and shine of fog as it rolled back in, draping the branches like wisps of cotton.

I am thinking of my sisters and me sitting on the heater eating breakfast with a blanket over our laps before 7:30 piano lessons, where our songs called up the sun to scatter the darkness. I am thinking of sitting on radiators, thawing out our feet and hearts after getting caught in the rain. I am thinking also of just last year, how our heater was broken more often than not, and how we wrapped ourselves in blankets and stood in front of the oven, mugs of tea in our hands. I am thinking of pumpkin bread, butternut squash soup, roasted sweet potatoes, carrot cake, hot apple cider. And I am thinking of a beautiful, heart-breaking book called the Meadow, which details a history of neighbors living through the lonely winters of Wyoming.

Generally, I like the somberness that comes on me like a veil, uncalled-for and unexpected. But it makes me unproductive. All I want to do is stare at the ceiling, trace patterns with my eyes or count all the cracks. I want to close my eyes, put fallish/winterish songs on repeat: William Fitzsimmons, Rosie Thomas, Gregory Alan Isakov, Damien Rice. Or walk on the shore for hours on end, sit on the edge of the wharf, and stare into the breathing mass of grey mystery until my mind is empty and clear. I want the world to be still enough so we can speak in whispers and all be heard.

For a few days last week, when the sun was shining, I carried a blanket and a pile of books everywhere I went and read with an abandon I haven’t had since I was twelve, losing my name and identity in other worlds. It started me dreaming and daydreaming again, beautiful vivid dreams full of color and laughter and adventure. Now I wake up breathing deeply, trying to catch the last bits of dream-air, full of hope. Then my eyes catch sight of the grey light, and the hope and optimism trickle away.

Yesterday, I pulled R.S. Thomas down from the shelf and found myself suddenly there, with him, in a dark chapel, morning sunlight filtering in weakly, my knees resting on the cold stone floor, the air heavy with presence, my heartbeat my only prayer because the words wouldn’t come.

Kneeling
R.S. Thomas

Moments of great calm,
Kneeling before an altar
Of wood in a stone church
In summer, waiting for the God
To speak; the air a staircase
For silence; the sun’s light
Ringing me, as though I acted
A great rôle. And the audiences
Still; all that close throng
Of spirits waiting, as I,
For the message.
Prompt me, God;
But not yet. When I speak,
Though it be you who speak
Through me, something is lost.
The meaning is in the waiting.

how did it go so fast, we'll say as we are looking back, and then we'll understand we held gold dust in our hands...

2010-08-28T00:30:00.001-07:00

Today, I know exactly what it is I want. I spent the day yesterday with almost all the people I love together in beautiful places eating excellent food and laughing until the tears ran down our faces. And even though I have had friends and laughter and good food and perfect landscapes all summer, finally, this time the equation was right.

Yesterday it suddenly became clear to me that the restlessness I have been feeling stemmed from the absence of these people in my life. I only see it and feel it now that I remember what wholeness is, now that I have seen all of us gathered back together again.

We know each other so well—what we love, what we hate, our families, our pasts, our faults, our tics—that when we bring to light the recent messes of our lives, we end up just laughing at ourselves and how absolutely ridiculous and silly and stubborn we all are. All our defenses come down; we have seen each other at our worst and at our best, and yet here we are still.

But what surprised me most about yesterday is how natural and organic it still feels. We didn’t get caught in the rut of catching up; it felt like living, real living. I am reminded of my reasons for staying in Santa Barbara this summer…because this community I have here is rare, and I want to live in the presence of these beautiful and wise women for as long as I can.

I stopped and looked around the room several times, tried to hold on to these fleeting moments, catch snatches of all the conversations going on around me…but they were going so fast, so naturally, without silences, no awkwardness. And for some reason, I started looking at everyone’s hair—the blacks, the reds, the browns, the blondes, the curly and the kinky and the straight and the braids and the frizz…and saw something so beautiful I got a shiver down my spine. How messy and individual and quirky we all are, but so beautiful, more beautiful together in the contrasts than we are separately.

Well, this morning, I woke to see all of my roommate’s belongings in a little corner of our bedroom, stacked neatly in three piles. So many people have been walking out of my life lately, without any promise of seeing them again in the next few years. And every time a wave of sadness washes over me for all the times I’ve been too caught up in my head to see the good that has surrounded me and embraced me so consistently these last four years.

And so I’ll say now what I never said enough: thank you, I love you, and Godspeed, my dears.

may the road rise up to meet you
ay the wind be always at your back
may the sun shine warm upon your face
and the rain fall soft upon your fields
and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand

come on, skinny love, just last the year...

2010-08-24T01:21:00.001-07:00

Earlier this summer, I read a poem about envying those who have two homes:

there is always the anticipation
of the change, the chance that what is wrong
is the result of where you are. i have
always loved both the freshness of
arriving and the relief of leaving. with
two homes every move would be a homecoming.
i am not even considering the weather, hot 
or cold, dry or wet: i am talking about hope.

For most of my life, these have been my sentiments exactly. Rarely have I felt the desire to remain in one place for more than a few months. My internal compass—my impatience, my fear of commitment?—pulls at me when I have been in one place too long to go somewhere, anywhere, new or well-known.

But this summer I experienced the opposite. I was living that poem, moving between home and home every few weeks. But each time I left, instead of anticipation, I felt a pang of guilt for not staying longer. It seemed I was wanted and needed more in the place I was leaving than the place I was heading for. Then I would arrive, walk through my front door, get tackled by my brothers or offered a freshly-baked lemon bar from my roommates and realize again the strange and beautiful grace of being welcomed completely, simply because I am myself and I do belong here, too.

Well, this is the season of goodbyes. Some reunions, but mostly goodbyes. And I am surprised by how callous my heart is most days, how I live in a numb stupor of routine, how my thoughts turn gray and despair takes hold when I stare up the face of the mountain called Imminent Decisions and Changes. Not because of sadness or regret or fear but out of resignation—because it’s time, because there has been so much good and to stay any longer would feel forced and fake or selfish. Something in me would rather go quickly and break all my ties so I can side-step the emotions and bypass the ceremonies, knowing I’ll be okay no matter what happens or where I’ll end up.

But honestly I think those are just my tried and true defense mechanisms clicking into place: turning to cynicism, numbness, and self-reliance instead of vulnerability, healthy emotion, and community because it’s easier that way, easier to stay neat and respectable when your heart isn’t breaking fifty times a day.

Strangely enough, I don’t want that anymore. I want the messy, the sobby and the snotty, the dirty, the abused, the sad and lonely things, and I want them to pierce my heart and constrict my breathing as though they were my own. I want the bravery to face the elusive sadness and loneliness and inferiority complex hiding deep within me, and my small, sickly, self-absorbed love to grow strong, grow wide wings of understanding, forgiveness, and grace. I want to drink the bitterness of this life, so I can taste how sweet and how good and how perfect is the love of God that covers all our brokenness.

Come, let us return to the Lord;
for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us;
he has struck down, and he will bind us up.
After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.
Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord;
his appearing is as sure as the dawn;
he will come to us like the showers,
like the spring rains that water the earth.

2 am can't sleep

2010-07-28T01:19:00.000-07:00

so many things that don't matter race through my head.

I've lost something since getting a job...
I miss that feeling of insecurity where I ran towards God with open arms begging Him to hold me and let me rest in His presence, trusting completely that He would provide for me.

life is good lately. everything is right in my life.
family relationships are healing. home feels like home, more like home than it has since I was four years old. my roommates make me laugh harder than I have laughed in probably two years. twice this week I have choked on water, and several more times this week I have cried from laughing too hard. and we have been eating very well. there is a deepness in my friendships here in santa barbara; we are living reality I think, not too fearful and not too disillusioned but happy and honest and hopeful. old dusty friendships from high school and junior high, even elementary school, are being renewed, and I am surprised by how much I have to offer them, and how they too can fill my life with joy and richness.

really there is nothing lacking in my life. all is as it should be, as I've always wanted it to be.

and yet...I can't quite explain it.
just this feeling that has haunted me my entire life, living daily knowing I have been given so much and falling so often into guilt for all the good in my life and all the heartache I have been spared and especially for all that I have left undone. gratefulness is not enough, it seems.

there is this strange pressure I feel within me to be someone or do something important because of where I come from and what I have been given...but the fear is too large for me and so I do nothing.

mumford and sons is daily changing my life. they teach me to feel honestly whether that is irrepressible joy that runs through my veins and makes my heart beat faster and makes me want to run and leap and dance...or whether that is deep melancholy and sadness that makes me want to huddle in a little ball in my bed and cry til I can cry no more because the world is too big and life is too harsh for someone so young and fragile. but mostly they have been teaching me to hope even so.

but there will come a time you'll see with no more tears
and love will not break your heart but dismiss your fears
get over your hill and see what you find there
with grace in your heart and flowers in your hair

listen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqUsAHTUPTU

but I will hold on hope

2010-06-24T01:07:00.001-07:00

I would be false if I failed to mention the loneliness. 15 hours of this past weekend were spent driving, over half spent alone, spent turning over in my mind the same old questions and doubts and fears. Then I came home to a silent dark empty apartment after living in a house of twelve for three days, and felt completely unknown.

I remember high school when I craved solitude, feigned sickness for one golden hour of silence and peace. Somewhere in the past four years, all this has changed…now solitude has multiplied and the quiet thunders in my ears. Even though I am surrounded by this communion of soul-sisters and brothers who love me and who do know me, sometimes that doubt creeps back in: that we are all just faking it, that what binds us together is not love but fear of the cold.

Today I realized I pray best when walking. My heart falls into rhythm with my steps, breathing out pleas and gratitude freely, my mind not quite so easily distracted. Alone, I walked farther today than ever before, asking God for a little clarity and a lot of hope.

There is no question about it; I am like St. Thomas, waiting—always waiting—to see and touch and feel and taste before commitment and surrender, before allowing myself the luxury of belief. And there is always the weight of shame that still I cannot believe, I who have witnessed with my own eyes miracles and transformation, I who have seen and have touched and have felt and have tasted that the Lord is good.

But something changed in me today. A word spoken, a reminder from outside of me that affirmed this season of soul-searching and not knowing who I am or why I am. So freeing to hear these same words that I have been saying and saying and trying to trick myself into believing coming from another mouth, spoken not as self-justification, but as words redeemed, spoken to me simply, with authority and power and grace.

As usual, nothing has actually changed. But at least there is a little more courage and a little more hope.

Wild Geese
Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.  
You do not have to walk on your knees  
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.  
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.  
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.  
Meanwhile the world goes on.  
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain  
are moving across the landscapes,  
over the prairies and the deep trees,  
the mountains and the rivers.  
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,  
are heading home again.  
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,  
the world offers itself to your imagination,  
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-- 
over and over announcing your place  
in the family of things.

Post-Grad

2010-06-15T23:55:00.000-07:00

For a little while yesterday it felt like light was running through my veins and flowing from my fingertips, my heart about to scatter into pieces from trying to hold in too much happiness. There was a whistling tea kettle, and blue sky and sunlight peeking through eucalyptus branches, and a mistyness hung over the ocean. And all of it made me want to run—hard and fast and long, hair whipping in the wind—and dive into the ocean, taste salt, and let the waves carry me.

The days which are empty are so full; I lose time like an absent-minded child, moving slowly from wonder to wonder. I think on this past week, and I have done nothing really, except perhaps practice the art of waiting well. It’s the small things that fill my hours, the unexpected, rediscovered things: lunch dates and coffee dates and dinner dates, long walks to the ocean, the smells and faces of roadside lavender and Mexican sage bush and jacaranda trees…and other things, nothings, forgettable but beautiful and surprising.

And I have been taking little mind-journeys into my past, stepping back into that old, hazy time. It feels like myth to me, like I’m looking into someone else’s life through someone else’s eyes. I find myself detached, questioning whether I was really there in these shaded memories that appear and fade again in my head.

Like those days when we laughed daily, loud and long, and never cried except from laughing too hard. That is not who I am anymore. Now I cry more and laugh less but I am happy, my joy is more honest, goes deeper than it did then. A sense of rightness has arrived in my life; I feel free, unpretentious, natural, just…here, in a time when living is good and breathing is easy.

I am wary, however, and humbled by the fact that even a few weeks ago, fear and anxiety were my closest companions, whispering lies of self-doubt into my ear. How grateful I am for these friends of mine who know me so well, see me more truly than I see myself, and point me towards the way of hope. They have helped me live not in the anxious emptiness but in the openness of this time, teaching me to not grasp at anything that seems secure, but to open my heart and my hands to receive what gifts and surprises come my way.

All that to say: there is still within me that restless girl who wants to live like a dreamer, exploring, chasing hope, doing wild, outlandish things…but at the same time something else is rising up in me: gratefulness that this reality I am living now is so much better than my dreams.

four years makes strangers

2010-05-02T00:20:00.000-07:00

tonight i am thinking of lounging around in the basement of a jazz bar in edinburgh, doused in red light. we drank magners; our conversation came in snatches, drawing attention to the organist’s mustache or the solo on the upright bass. there was a thunderstorm outside; we walked back quickly down princes street, sharing an umbrella, our jeans soaked halfway up our calves.

we were sitting around a table, and i looked at each face, realizing sharply and suddenly how much we have changed. it’s true, we’ve aged. in good ways. like a cheese or wine. and like an aged cheese or wine, we’ve grown deep into ourselves, each with a strong and distinct taste. and some of these tastes don’t complement each other as well as we would have hoped.

this place is so strange: how the smallness makes us think we know each better than we do; how the fear of being unknown leads to saccharine niceness; how easy it is to accumulate insta-friends. how we live so much of our lives together and are still strangers; how we live so much of our lives alone and can still meet face-to-face, cry together, laugh together. how, suddenly, one thing shifts, and you realize: i don’t know you at all.

and i am thinking of the woman i thought i would have become by now. realizing twenty is not as old as it seemed. that, really, all this life is just one huge balancing act, and some are just naturally more graceful on their feet than i am.

I belong with the salt and the sea and the stones; save them all for me.

2010-04-27T02:05:00.000-07:00

When I think of him, I see him in a white wife-beater and blue shorts, skin deep dark brown, heavy wrinkles. I see him leaning against a brick wall, cigarette in his mouth, distance in his eyes. A few years back he caught pneumonia, and gave up smoking cold, after smoking a pack a day for fifty or more years.

When we speak about him, he’s the cool grandpa, the one who wakes early and does fifty push-ups each morning. He has this uncanny knack for making the perfect amount of food, so everyone is fully satisfied, no one has over-eaten, and there is nothing left on any dish—a real achievement in a household where the number of mouths to feed varies from eight to sixteen depending on the day.

He speaks a little Spanish, a remnant of his sailing days, traveling from port to port in Southern America. The first time my dad met him was at age seven, and only briefly before he left for another sailing trip. He jumped ship and swam to shore, lived in the States for a few months before being deported back to China, then jumped ship again and became a naturalized citizen.

Back when I was in high school, we had a little family reunion on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. My grandpa would stand for hours on deck, a cigarette balancing between his lips, looking across the sea, looking into his past. Towards the end of the trip, he told us, jokingly, “When we get back to America, I’m going to stay on the ship. I’ll be a waiter or scrub the floors or anything. I just want to stay on the ship.”

But I think he meant it. These days I often wonder what would have happened if circumstances had been different: if there hadn’t been three families living under his roof, if there hadn’t been an autistic child and a schizophrenic child placed under his care.

This semester, I have spent more time by the ocean than ever before, waking early and eating oatmeal in the morning light, or spending afternoons there, reading Faulkner or Eliot or Mary Oliver. And when the days are long and weary, I’ll sit out there alone, and let the darkness engulf me, stare out at the lighted oil rigs creating patterns on the shifting water, breathe, in and out, in and out, and all is well.

There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries—stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region.

Something there is in the ocean that draws me back again and again. Maybe it’s the constancy, the continual rushing up and washing away, rubbing the stones smooth. Maybe it’s the newness each time, the thick swirling fog one morning, and the clear white light another; the pelicans swooping head-first into the water, and the snowy plovers running in when the tide goes out, pecking at the sand, then running out again when the wave comes creeping back up the shore; the orange and purple and pink of sunset, the silver of twilight.

All I know is that it is here, by the ocean, that I understand my grandpa most easily, when the wanderlust tugs at my feet and the memories tug at my heart.

I’ve been steeping myself in the music of Gregory Alan Isakov these last few weeks, who sings of the sea, and makes me want to build a raft and drift off to the middle of the ocean, far from any sight of land, where I can be with God sending us all the big waves and I wish I was a sailor so I could know just how to trust, maybe I could bring some grace back home to the dryland for all of us.

But the other day God taught me a little bit about trust from the safety of shore. My cheeks were already salty from tears, and I turned towards the ocean. It was fishing time, a large fishing boat anchored in front of me, the pelicans hovering, waiting to strike, then diving with alarming speed headfirst into the water with a splash.

Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a dorsal fin, and, for a moment, hoped for a dolphin, looked for a dolphin, but dismissed it as a diving pelican. Then I thought of impetuous Peter, whose toes and insteps, just before sleep, would remember their passage on wave-tip towards the Messiah. And I thought of mustard seeds, and friends of mine who have prayed specifically for dolphins and seen them.

So, despite a deep sense of foolishness, I prayed for dolphins. I waited, and whispered: “I believe; help my unbelief.” And suddenly there they all were: dolphins all around, at play, dancing in the light, for me alone, simply out of God’s good grace. And what I felt was not scalding pain, shame for my obstinate need, but light, light streaming into me, over me…my question not answered but given its part in a vast unfolding design lit by a risen sun.

And now: I am grateful, almost giddy, at peace. God has been good to me, even in the moments when the unknown looms large and close. And I think of my grandpa, his bravery, his sense of adventure, but mostly his attitude of surrender and resignation, the letting go of dreams for the good of all his people.

and oh that full bellied moon she’s a-shinin’ on me
yeah she pulls on this heart like she pulls on the sea

I ♥ New York

2010-04-26T00:36:00.000-07:00

The other night I slept on the couch and dreamt of being four years old again, sleeping on my grandparents’ living room floor on East Broadway. There, the sounds were multiplied and magnified: buses and semi-trucks rushing past, taxis honking horns, drunken men staggering home rolling expletives off their tongues.

A deep red (for prosperity and happiness and longevity) fluorescent light buzzed and cast an eerie glow from the top of a cabinet, illuminating the shrine in the corner, complete with pictures of my great-grandparents, fruit and little offerings set in front. The heavy sacredness exuding from the altar softened briefly only by the headlights of passing cars.

The trucks and buses and taxis rumbled past hour by hour; by early morning, those noises faded into the fabric: the daily garbage truck first, before sunrise; then, the metal scrape of iron gates and bars being pushed aside, their nightly duties fulfilled; yelling Chinese merchants unloading a fresh catch of fish or hanging up new ducks in the window; finally, humming conversation punctuated with the taps and clicks and clacks of business shoes and stilettos on the sidewalk.

My two sisters and I would sit in a semi-circle around the dining room table with three identical glasses of milk, digging the smooth, creamy don tot and the flaky crust out with a spoon, or squeezing and rolling the mon tow into little shapes before popping them into our mouths, or dividing the char siu bou into four equal bite-size sections, or counting how many chews it took to swallow the sweet, sticky, chewy, peanut chay my grandma had made.

My grandparents took us on walks daily: my grandpa in his tweed jacket, my grandma in her patterned sweater. Our path took us under the smelly, noisy, echoey, puddley bridge, past the fish-markets with fish that stared back at you with large glossy eyes, past the meat markets where you could buy any meat imaginable—chicken feet, pig ears, cow tongue, intestine, heart, gelatinous blood, abalone, snails, jellyfish, sea cucumber—a right turn past the junk yard, take a stop at the newspaper stand for the World Journal and a pack of Bubble Yum, then across the street through the park where the community’s grandparents met for tai chi or Chinese chess or pigeon feeding, then finally to the playground with the tallest slide in existence and see-saws.

In the subway, we dropped tokens into the slot for the adults, then ducked underneath the turnstile because children rode the subway free those days. We were experts; we knew to stay far behind the yellow line and we knew the pattern. First, you could hear it coming, then the lights turning a corner, then the great rush of wind as it slowed to a stop. We hopped onto the train, slipped into one of the hard bright orange graffitied seats, kept track of the stops on the maps overhead, then hopped off again.

Some days we spent snaking through the packed Chinatown streets; I clung on to an adults’ hand out of terror of being trampled by the crowd. In less crowded parts of town, I often trailed behind, staring up at buildings that stretched forever, really did seem to scrape the sky.

But mostly our days revolved around food: meeting relatives for dim sum, drinking bubble tea at Sweet N’ Tart Café, buying zeppole and knish from street vendors, or cheesecake from Junior’s Cheesecake, or cannoli and cream puffs and éclairs from Ferrara’s. And at night, the kitchen would buzz with adults and the scent of garlic and ginger and soy sauce and sesame oil and hoisin and oyster sauce. The adults would roll out a huge circle of wood and place it on the dining room table to seat at least twenty for dinner, then play mah jong late into the night, long after my bedtime.

These days, when we go back, we stay with the other side of my family, the ones I always remember back in Amish country, sitting on the deck in the backyard, with a barbecue and a farmer’s market watermelon, playing games like Dingo and Turtle, fascinated with my uncle’s fish, my grandpa jokingly trying to color my grey knees and elbows and blue birthmark with a brown crayon, catching butterflies in the afternoons and fireflies at night.

These days, when we go back, we don’t stay in the center of town anymore; we stay in Long Island or Queens, where it takes a bus ride and a train ride to get into Manhattan, but far enough away that the fireflies still come out at night.

These days, when we go back, the once black-haired aunts and uncles and great-aunts and great-uncles, whose Chinese titles I’ve never been able to remember and whose real names I was never privileged enough to know, are arthritic, graying, losing teeth and mental capacity, or are simply gone, have died.

These days, when we go back, we go only in summer, missing Central Park in the fall, and the Christmas tree and ice skating rink in Rockefeller Center, and the colors of spring. We go only in summer, when the heat is oppressive, and the air so thick with moisture you sweat like a popsicle melting in the sun, even when the sky is filled with thunder and lightning.

Even so, there is something of home there, something familiar I can put on like an old comfortable pair of shoes with the soles worn through: I can feel the ground beneath my feet when I am there.

teach me to be a turtle

2010-04-20T00:25:00.000-07:00

If it’s true that home is where the heart is, then my heart is broken and scattered across the continent.

Pennsylvania came first, with the funnel cake, and strawberry fields, and fireflies, and wide-open spaces.
Then Chinatown in Manhattan, with the fish markets and bus fumes, tai chi in the park, graying men and women playing mah jong deep into the night, fish eyes and chicken feet.
And my house with the persistent smell of garlic, sitting on the roof, my brothers who love me so well and even now pick me flowers and send me valentines.
Then: the mornings by the ocean, the afternoons in the courtyard, the nights on the rock by the library, hours in the practice rooms.
England and Ireland and Scotland, where feeling came first and life was like a fairy tale, where strangers lived like family, wounding and forgiving each other.
And now this little white apartment with cranes and leaves and maps and frames and candles and handmade books and (now) blue and purple and pink and white flowers.

This is the way it goes: my heart tied by strings to all these places I have lived in and to all these people I have loved, each one tugging at me since I left, waiting for me to come back home. My life is one of discovery, redefining myself in new places, and again when I move on. Always I feel the absence of these places, begging me to remember what it is I have lost in myself.

Is it true that home is where you start from? that you can never get back, that home becomes just some shadowy nebulous past place of strange familiarity?

There is no rest in music until you reach the tonic again, until you find home. But even when you find it again, it’s never exactly the same.

Now I am exhausted by being known in this place—I have outgrown this school, I think—and I feel sixteen again. My only fear then was growing up too fast, but my longing for anonymity was far greater than my fear. So I left.

I am torn between wanting to go far, far away to a new place where my face fades into the crowd and wanting to stay here, with this sense of home, rooted, surrounded by these people I love in this place I love. But I am restless, with conversations that bounce back and forth between what awaits after May 8th and what has happened here these past four years.

I wish I were a turtle, slow-moving, semi-aquatic, perfectly happy on land and in sea. All I want is to carry my home and these friends of mine with me wherever I go, protecting me, growing with me.

I'm afraid I'll be homesick for the rest of my life.

sometimes the weather here is like me:

2010-03-03T21:31:00.000-08:00

sunny and warm and blue and right one moment then grey and stormy the next

lately

2010-02-20T11:44:00.001-08:00

Sometimes I feel like Kate Nash: 'sometimes when I'm at a busy train station somewhere big with noisy trains like Kings Cross I feel like putting down my bags and shouting out because I have something to say'

But most of the time my feelings just don't fit into words.

Lately I've been remembering how to be alone. It's hard to find solitude here, even living away from campus, and more difficult to settle into solitude when it comes.

But this past weekend, away from everyone, alone, finally, I found...what I had been missing. Not peace, or joy, or happiness exactly, but itself: a sense of deepness, right and good. It was that moment entirely free from the pressure to be anything but myself, to stop performing, do nothing but exist in my skin.

I found myself, wrapped myself in myself like a blanket. Borrowing from dear Annie: 'I slid into myself perfectly fitted, as a diver meets her reflection in a pool. Her fingertips enter the fingertips on the water, her wrists slide up her arms. The diver wraps herself in her reflection wholly, sealing it at the toes, and wears it as she climbs rising from the pool, and ever after."

I found the butterflies, a park with a creek too, wildflowers and clover. Time suspended, light suspended. All I could think of was how I could never work an 8-5 job in a cubicle because I would miss the sunlight too much, and Gus following the salmon down the river. Maybe I will live my life as a lobsterman's wife. Or a fisherman, or bee-keeper, or lighthouse-keeper's wife, any of those would work for me.

The Men's Chorale is singing Innisfree this semester, and every Monday and Wednesday around 3:45, I get chills. They don't sing it perfectly yet, but the words, the harmonies, their enthusiasm, the fact that Yeats wrote it while homesick for Ireland...it moves me, stirs a longing within me to go back to that place where the light is white and still, the green hills broken up by crumbling walls of stone, the sound of raindrops greets you every morning.

And maybe all I want is to sit by a lake for hours, watch the sun trail across the sky, drinking tea and eating bread and cheese, letting the water lick at my toes, knowing the right names for things: birds and fish, trees, all the sky's shades of blue.

But maybe that's not it at all. Maybe that's not what I want at all.

When I Am Among the Trees
Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness,
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."

I never thought this would be me

2010-01-28T22:26:00.000-08:00

talking so fast so much so pointlessly to fill up the emptiness.

let me live my life in monochromaticisms

2009-11-01T17:16:00.000-08:00

Besides the extra hour of sleep, daylight savings in the fall-time makes me bitter about the too-soon fading light. Tonight it is hardly 5:30 and my living room is in that in-between stage: too dark to see clearly, too light to turn on the lights. The colors drain, distilled into shape and shadow.

I can see a sunset reflection on the windows across the way. Right at 6--now 5--the reflected sun shines strong through the slats of our blinds, projecting a shadow show across our wall of half-frames and the little tree made of paper bag strips. The orchids, the daisies, the wildflowers, the rosemary plant, the colored glass jars leave a second layer of patterns on the wall, shifting by the moment.

And I am sitting here as I have sat all day long, curled up in a plaid blanket, too sick and weary to do much else but watch the sky, watch the light. It's been a long time since I've sat in one place, since I allowed myself the luxury of long-looking. Now the sky is gray-blue-purple, and Alexi Murdoch is playing softly in the background, and the only color left in this room is a faded orchid pink and a faded gerber daisy orange by the window.

This reminds me of:
I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,
The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,
And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama
And the bold imposing facade are all being rolled away—

I'm waiting for the scene to change. I'm not sure where I stand in the progress of this play; maybe past the climax, tripping through the falling action, nearing the denouement. Or perhaps the action is rising still, moving forward towards the climax.

But maybe the five-part structure just doesn't fit. I am still unconvinced that my life progresses in a straight line. If anything, I have been caught in a circle of rising action, climax, falling action, and back again, never reaching resolution, never reaching the all-important denouement.

What I do know is this: the last two weeks were weeks of color, bright, clashing, exhausting flares of significance. Now to recover I will steep myself in gray-blue twilight, in the murky darkness of black cream tea, in the stillness of deep dark ocean lit by a full moon, all while tasting words of full-bodied poetry on my tongue.

Now I am waiting for the scene to change and wishing my denouement to come. I am waiting for the lights to come on again, and for the background to be suddenly different, to be taken suddenly from the snowy Swiss alps to a flat grassy meadow in the Midwest. I am waiting for the weariness to disperse, for the fear to be stilled, for the healing to be complete.

But then I remember that this life is, excuse me Donald Miller and forgive me Shakespeare, like jazz and does not resolve. And, in this season at least, peace and grace settle unnoticed through moments of grays and blues.

on loss

2009-10-24T01:47:00.000-07:00

So many questions this past week.

No we are not the exception. Somehow we have lived so much of life untouched; suddenly, now it all hits.

What I know now: nothing is constant. Pillars in life have shifted.

The seasons have turned. With the coming of the cold comes ripeness; then, too quickly, death, ruin, spoil. The fruit falls and trees unleave themselves. The wind blows through you as if you were not there. The cold heralds weariness yet sleeplessness, brings a deepness forgotten in the heat of summer.

Loss hovers like the morning fog: you wait all day for it to burn off. In places, sunlight, filtered, works its way through the oppressive mass. Here and there, hopeful attempts at creating relationship trickle through. Lately, I have been cynical; who knows if they will last?

There is a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

What happens when you can’t decide whether it’s time to weep or laugh, to mourn or dance? What happens when it is time to rejoice but only tears come?

We are discussing life and death, and not in the abstract, either; we are discussing my life and my death…Now is a time for simplicity. Now is a time for, dare I say it, kindness.

My mind cannot wrap itself around void. The concept is too large for me: to think that a person who is here one moment can be taken away the next. Something that reeks of unreality is now the sole new reality. What has been lost can never be regained entire, only renewed, transformed into something similar but never exactly the same.

What next? Are we in exile, left to wander the wilderness with no land to call our own?
How meaningless the words that fall from my mouth. How weary my feet as they carry me from place to place, my fingers as, again and again, they cover familiar black and white territory. How silly the inner workings of my mind.

The seasons shift from brokenness to healing to brokenness to healing, a little deeper, a little more honestly each time.

Loss rushes in and washes out, making the rough edges smooth.

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice
And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And I pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

dona nobis pacem

wisher

2009-10-22T21:38:00.000-07:00

can I just be five and live my life over?

nothing out of the ordinary really

2009-10-20T23:30:00.000-07:00

little pattern in my life these days

the days surprise me by the end
when I look back

so much unreality these days

[I'm thinking of jail time, engagements, babies]

where is my promised land?
how many more years of wishing, of wilderness wandering?

the seasons of brokenness then healing then brokenness then healing then brokenness
where is the moving forward?

after the revelation, always this pulling back, always the hiddenness again

maybe I should graduate early and just get all this over with.

[who knows if the moon's a balloon?]
so much unreality these days

for the time being

2009-10-20T18:04:00.001-07:00

on the one hand there is so much to say.
on the other hand there is nothing:
only life to be lived which pulls either way.

what comes naturally

2009-09-27T02:28:00.001-07:00

this weekend is like coming home.

midnight wanderings on campus. all things have settled, absence of people. westmont feels deceptively mine when I am the only one walking. no sound but cricket song.

I'd forgotten this sensation: the stillness, aloneness completely free of loneliness. the hollowness is somehow deeper this time, and my feelings fall out my bottomless heart.

even as a child I remember grasping at emotion, uncomprehending. is this sadness? am I sad? this is what she says sadness is; this must be sadness. still I lack words to describe my emotions. in all my happiness there is always melancholy; in all my loneliness there is always joy. naming my emotions traps them, soon I lose them to numbness.

I cut off a couple inches of hair today. unpremeditated. spontaneous and freeing.

midnight in a dark practice room. my mind shuts off, my fingers move, I realize subconsciously I am swaying. now my head is bent down close to the keys, now reaching up, stretching to contain this beauty that streams from my fingers. it's uncontrollable, heart-wrenching when it happens just right.

if there's anything I have learned, it is this: I am not a performer. music heals me when unwitnessed; music in performance hurts me, deepens insecurities. no I am not a musician til I am alone in darkness with a piano.

in spite of all the sleeplessness, this weekend I have found rest. I find my peace in solitude, in friendships that have grown so deep that we can be with each other comfortably, with speech or without, drawing strength simply by presence, a squeeze of a hand, a knowing look.

home: let me settle back in to tonic, practice the scales of rejoicing, the little ways of redeeming the TIME BEING from insignificance.

one thing
malachi 4.2
theatre as magic
the wild thyme unseen
healing through autobiography
my pen suddenly not dry and weary
artichokes and tomatoes preserve community

[shantih shantih shantih]

thought hodge-podge

2009-09-23T00:03:00.000-07:00

so many good days in a row! caaan't handle it

1st day of autumn, 'season of mists and mellow fruitfulness'

assignment: be/write like annie dillard. am I setting myself up for failure? yes but who cares

oh let's get rich and buy our parents homes in the south of france let's get rich and give everyone nice sweaters and teach them how to dance let's get rich and build a house on a mountain making everybody look like ants from way up there, you and I, you and I

I met a man named Raphael today who asked me if I had Indian blood in me [I was barefoot] and if I loved Jesus

oranges! make me smile and my day just so much better :)

also, clean laundry, and the soft warmth of clothes fresh out of the dryer

I miss: writing poetry, reading poetry, reciting poetry, replaying poetry in my head

I would like: to learn names of birds and trees

I have: remembered how to make paper cranes and paper stars

I enjoy: cooking, home-decorating

I found: a perfect concerto piece

I was given: a 50 dollar macy's gift card from the music department. they like me alot.

I wish: I had pictures in my head to paint/draw

I want: to play with my lil brothers!

[notice what you notice]

2009-09-16T01:09:00.000-07:00

so much good in these days.

I don't feel quite awake; I'm not fully aware.
the days run together.

too much to notice, too much to claim.
too many gifts in these days to fully receive them all.

"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this," says the LORD of hosts, "if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows."
Malachi 3:10

now what?

Here, again.

2009-09-11T22:53:00.000-07:00

Despite all the promises we made (we'll never forget this night these walks the way the wind circles around us the droplets of light the dailiness of our joy) these moments slip back into consciousness, elbowing me, whispering "remember me? do you remember?"

Most days I am unaware of time passing. Suddenly I am not chasing fireflies anymore. Suddenly my two front teeth are gone; suddenly there they are again. Now I am catching tadpoles, baking bread, sewing quilts; now I am watching the monarch butterflies in great clumps of movement in the trees. Suddenly I have peach juice sticky down my face, on my fingers; suddenly I am making peach pie, peach cobbler, peach fruit leather; suddenly the peach tree is barren. Now I have three sisters, and now a brother, and now another (will it never end?). Suddenly I speak; suddenly the world awaits.

Suddenly the day is done; suddenly two weeks of senior year are gone.

I think of Thoreau's deliberate and Dillard's wakeful awareness and Marilyn McEntyre's long looking; these words I have lived by, hoped to grow old in, to fit into like a favorite sweater. And yet I stand here forgetful, wakeful, aware more so than ever of what has been and is no longer.

So much change surrounds these days. I walk through the campus, wide-awake to my memories. I try to notice what I used to notice. In my head, I picture old faces in places that don't exist anymore. I see bare dirt where beautiful trees once thrived. I hear construction when I used to hear birdsong and see orange tape where I used to see green wilderness. I walk and feel, I walk and recite lines of poetry and song like a broken record, I walk and notice how my way of thought has shifted, and again, and again, these past years. The end is coming, and here again the beginning presses in on my consciousness.

In broad daylight, I walk through the VK parking lot, and think of the fog rolling in, headlights, the silhouette of a girl talking on a cell phone. Not the walk back to Armington; now it is the walk from Country Club to Ocean View.

In Reynolds, we have new poems from the underground hung on the walls. One is Feste's song. I know the backstory to this poster; what were the backstories to the old posters?

I never step into the DC anymore. There is too much glass; too many new bright lights and fancy decorations; too few familiar faces. Remember our five o'clock dinners that lasted til seven or later?

These are not constants. All is shifting, all is changing, but the changes help me see more clearly what I had at one point in time. This was my time and now the time is running out. I have looked and noticed, lost so much, hurt, claimed joy as my own, taken captive moments of absolute perfection.

This place is mine; I have loved it deeply enough. And I am learning that that is enough. That this place was never mine enough for me to control. That I can release my grip with confidence and gratefulness. That this place is like me, unrecognizable on the surface, under construction, burned and bare, but growing still, alive still, fundamentally the same as it always has been.

lately

2009-09-06T14:57:00.000-07:00

I haven't been so happy in so long.
neither have I been so exhausted.

one week of school so far and already I am sleep-deprived.
but life has been good and I have lived free and full.

there is so much brightness here. and rushing waters. I have been baptized again into hope.

every hour there is opportunity for new sight.

we live by creativity. sometimes to push ourselves towards new sight. or sometimes only to remind ourselves that creation is good, that art gathers together.

something about this apartment breathes blessing. whites and browns and reds. seeping sunlight through the slats. daisies candles old copies of Browning and Milton. the absence of television noise. art from scrap. conversation.

I'm remembering how to make cranes.

[playlist for today:
ben harper: she's only happy in the sun
page france: jesus
big japan: all the fish in the sea are stupid sluts anyway
amos lee: keep it loose, keep it tight
welcome wagon: up on a mountain
augustana: sweet and low acoustic
the smiths: please, please, please let me get what I want
adele: make you feel my love]

Annie Dillard teach me your ways.

2009-08-29T10:36:00.000-07:00

She is nine, beloved, as open-faced as the sky and as self-contained. I have watched her grow. As recently as three or four years ago, she had a young child's perfectly shallow receptiveness; she fitted into the world of time, it fitted into her, as thoughtlessly as sky fits its edges, or a river its banks. But as she has grown, her smile has widened with a touch of fear and her glance has taken on depth. Now she is aware of some of the losses you incur by being here--the extortionary rent you have to pay as long as you stay.

Aces and Eights

I who have died am alive again today

2009-08-29T00:44:00.001-07:00

well here I am. moved into a new comfortable cozy apartment. wonderful friends and happy reunions.

something feels funny though. something heavy. the night before I left we talked of brokenness, uncertainty, sickness. a friend of mine is praying each day for her husband's life to be spared overseas.

and summer is over. with it goes that strange season of nothingness, of blankness, of emptiness. I lost myself this summer; I became somehow less.

but now to be in this place surrounded by people who know me at my best and fullest. to realize how many steps backward I have taken these past few months. to see again, and bitterly, and more acutely than ever before, how living at home reinforces my insecurities and renders me functionally incompetent.

[note to self: never live at home for more than two weeks straight ever again.]

it's nice being here, of course. the freedom is priceless. here I can be a person, find myself again. but here I no longer have the safety of indifference. here I feel, here people treat me with respect. here I will be found out.

sanctification, it seems, is a continual crumbling into bits. always I am breaking, healed only to fall apart again.

[so I turn to annie dillard yet again:
"Holiness is a force, and like the others can be resisted. It was given, but I didn't want to see it, God or no God. It was as if God had said, 'I am here, but not as you have known me. This is the look of silence, and of loneliness unendurable; it too has always been mine, and now will be yours.'"]

life is good in santa barbara

2009-08-15T22:42:00.000-07:00

I found the piece that was missing. in Santa Barbara, of course.

now I am home but just waiting to get back. I am whole and brimming when there.

my santa barbara friends teach me about living, growth, possibility. we adventure, we explore, we walk. we don't sleep much--there is too much life to live.

lights in a garden, classical guitar, black tea, fire pits, peach hookah, a corner loveseat.

heavy rolling clouds of fog, streetlamps.

freedom. yogurtland at 11 at night. hours spent in antique shops. a penis traced in the dirt and ash on my windshield? somehow it all feels like I am finally living, like I have finally stepped into the world I've been watching turn on its axis.

the ocean is there. still and ever-moving. always the same, always changing. so easy to lose the baggage, to drop all that weighs down. it is enough to surrender, to let the beauty surround, to realize yes I too belong in this picture, I am beautiful too.

one day I will have a little house and decorate it all in blue and white with birds and vases and candles. maybe I'll start collecting now.

I am humbled in this city
There seems to be an endless sea of people like us
Wakeful dreamers, I pass them on the sunlit streets
In our rooms filled with laughter
We make hope from every small disaster

Everybody says "you can't, you can't, you can't, don't try."
Still everybody says that if they had the chance they'd fly like we do.

weepies, a painting by chagall

Summer, a sketch.

2009-08-07T22:56:00.000-07:00

Somedays I wake up, look in the mirror, and don't recognize myself. Everything is the same: I can trace the contours of my face, nose, mouth, I see how comfortably my hair falls across my face and eyes, I even see how my body fits just right in the little familiar bathroom space. But something unnamable, something just underneath the surface is different.

That strange unsettling feeling defines my entire summer. Everything is normal on the surface, but there is something deeper that is not right, something that remains just beyond the reach of consciousness. This summer, like every summer, like every time I spend any extended period of time at home, I lose touch. I live in indifferent routine, moving from day to day, task to task mindlessly, accomplishing nothing.

I've written little all summer, and I think the reason is because writing requires long looking, attention to detail, stillness, thought, analysis, patience, work. Almost daily, I realize I am slipping, somehow losing parts of myself that I have worked so hard for years to maintain. When I was younger, there was something inside me that compelled me to make music, to write, to stargaze, to seek solitude and silence, to create--no matter what the circumstances. But I've realized this summer that the need to create is gone.

In a way, it's been freeing. I've been thinking about Hedda Gabler's obsession with Ejlert's "beautiful death," and I wonder if I have had an obsession with living a beautiful life, with creating beautiful things because somehow that beauty will transfer back to me. I am learning to let things be, to let myself be: a process approaching but never reaching product, in continual refinement, change, and growth.

At the same time, however, I feel blank, lost, somehow less than who I know myself to be. Spending more than a few minutes at the piano every few hours gets more difficult with each passing day. The moments when I lose myself in a book and find myself more invested in the lives of fictional characters than I am in my own life are few and far between.

My life is a constant state of transition, it seems. A continual give and take, a neverending loss of one thing and gain of another. But I think I'm okay with that--I've been reading Annie Dillard lately:

At a certain point you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains, the world, Now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive. You empty yourself and wait, listening. After a time you hear it: there is nothing there. There is nothing but those things only, those created objects, discrete, growing or holding, or swaying, being rained on or raining, held, flooding or ebbing, standing, or spread. You feel the world’s word as a tension, a hum, an single chorused note everywhere the same. This is it: this hum is the silence.

We were put on earth to recognize God's work before we carry out His will, to receive before we give, to experience before we create, to see before we share, to be before we become. It is enough to be here, to rejoice in what is known and the mystery of what is not yet known, to see the beauty that dwells in all.

too long.

2009-08-04T11:35:00.000-07:00

I haven't written in ages.
something about me feels lost.

oh well.

this entire month I'll be home in gilroy [the middle of nowhere] with nothing to do. my older sister already left for college, my younger sister is leaving this weekend...and I won't be leaving til the last week of august. hopefully I'll write.

anyways:
new favorite pandora station: she & him.
currently reading: angela's ashes, a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.
and I'm a little in love with jim halpert.

mayterm, growing up, going home.

2009-05-19T20:51:00.000-07:00

book after book. I'm sifting through, trying to read word by word. so much, too much to process so quickly.
I want to stop, let the words and meanings seep deep into my soul and mind and heart, change me. but there isn't time.
the words, the pile of books relentless.

but I love this experience, love the progress I have made, love how much I have learned in just one short week.
for the first time in my life I know prolonged stillness, quiet, independence. I'm living in a little house with two girls, one works from 8-5 each day and the other is just as busy with class and homework as I am. so the house is mostly empty most days.

now this is no small change for me: I come from a loud in-your-face chinese homeschooled family with five siblings and always relatives or friends at my house which make dorm life seem quiet and calm. strangely enough, the shift to living in a neat quiet house with eight hours of sleep every night came smoothly, completely naturally, as though this is the life that I was meant to have all along. except the learning how to cook for just one person thing.

in high school I craved time alone, an empty house. I would snatch at times when I could sit alone, listening to silence. I remember those rare once-every-two-or-three-month occurrences, after putting the children to bed, turning all the lights off in the house moving blindly from room to room like a ghost or sitting in the center of my house, resting, not anticipating anything, not waiting, not thinking, just sitting, eyes closed, body still, heart rate slow, resting.
sometimes with a bowl of ice cream and mango cubes.

and here I can read a string of books in a week's time, here there are no interruptions to cook dinner for ten people, or pick up someone from dance class and drop off someone else at boy scouts and buy a chinese newspaper for my grandpa.

but of course I know all this is short-lived. four weeks from now I'll be back home with my entire family and both sets of grandparents and an uncle and aunt from the east coast and going half-deaf with all five languages spoken in my house, and chinese tv shows, and stir-frying, and kristina's hannah montana, and maddie's...everything, and maria's need to control the craziness, and the boys running around and screaming and laughing, and my mother trying to pay attention to everything and talking to everyone at once, and my father trying to make peace, and my going-deaf-and-senile grandparents repeating everything twenty times and loudly and all at once.

so every moment I am learning to value for what it is now, hoping to bring that all-pervading peace I know so well here back home with me.

don't get me wrong. I love home. I love my family. I love the craziness, although in small doses. and in a strange way I long to be back now because nothing will be the same from here on out. maria's going to med school, maddie's going to boston, and the children are growing up. gabe couldn't speak in sentences when I first came to college and now he's reading and writing. kristina looks more like maddie each time I go home, and mikey is getting wiser, concerned about how much of a temptation candy is for him.

sometimes I want my brothers to never grow up, to keep picking me flowers and drawing me pictures, and climbing onto my lap and asking me to tell them stories about dragons and adventures and aliens, and to always be entranced by the squirrel in the front yard, and to always find something to laugh about, but in other ways I'm so glad they're growing up and changing. because, strange as it seems for me to be saying this, I have been growing up and changing and becoming more deeply myself or at least accepting more of myself and it's not half bad.

...but oops I should have reading all this time.

we have become beautiful without even knowing it.

2008-12-17T22:49:00.000-08:00

Where do I begin? I am a hundred times over filled with happiness. Returning to familiarity is like slipping on an old favorite sweater; reassuring, it stirs my heart to sing.

It’s the collection of all the little things that make the difference: sunshine, blue skies, the sparkling of sunlight on the ocean, the pure Santa Barbara light, and, most of all, old friends who have changed and recognize that I have changed too but still love me the same. I have a suspicion that it is not so much that we have changed but have grown more deeply into ourselves.

I do miss England. I do miss the frost on the windows, tea and scones, the deep glowing green of the trees, the gray that hangs over everything, the thick, heavy, almost yellow-tinged light in London. But England is far away now, a whole week in the past; England to me is dream-like. It’s as time though time had stopped for three and a half months and I had a long elaborate vision, hardly real.

Coming back makes me realize how far I have come and how much I have learned. In many ways, I feel no different now than I did before I left, just a little wiser from mistakes I have made, a little more knowledgeable of who I am, how I work, what I desire in life. I have seen how people can hurt each other, I have seen how people can love each other, can forgive each other, can move on, even when healing seems counterintuitive.

With only twenty-eight people living together for three and a half months, all things were magnified: drama, sorrow, joy, laughter. There were few places to go alone and there was little privacy [even the walls were thin, almost non-existent], and so we became a little family who wept together, laughed together, argued with each other, wrestled with each other, processed through our pasts and presents and futures together, danced and sang together, played together.

There was one night at the end of the semester when we all put on our best selves, and all things were made beautiful. In the darkened gymnasium we talked individually with each person on the trip, naming the good in each person, apologizing for mistakes and hurting each other, and showering each other with only truths. Actively searching for the good in people automatically revealed the beauty in these people that was often hidden because we were too lazy and selfish to look for it. There were tears shed, there was uncontrollable laughter, there were memories recalled, and I came out not only knowing myself more truthfully but seeing others in a more truthful, and therefore more beautiful, light.

After that night, I can look into these people’s eyes and say with all honesty, ‘Namaste—I see the divine in you. You are beautiful, you are God’s creation, and He has so much more in store for you. Do not cheapen yourself, do not settle for less, because you deserve more—you are God’s child, you are His beloved.”

Of course, not all things were made perfect that night. Deep-seated hurt takes time to heal and conversations are only stepping stones. But I am determined not to lose what I learned there even though the truths seem less relevant now. I find myself gripping on to these truths because I know they were true of myself then and are not entirely dependent on place and time, and so should be and must be true of myself still.

And now, today, in Santa Barbara, my circle of twenty-eight people has expanded exponentially. But still, my task is the same: to look deeply for the good, for the divine in each person without reservation, to name the beauty that is in the people around me.

And it is good to be back. It is good to see how much people have grown while I have been gone, a growth I may not have recognized if I had spent every day with these people. How wonderful, how beautiful—God is here, God is present, God is working. I am in love with life.

Approaching Clarity

2008-10-23T05:47:00.000-07:00

I am no masochist but there’s something so fulfilling and satisfying in these spiritual and emotional growing pains. What I have learned these past few weeks: Self-discovery hurts. Vulnerability hurts. Healing hurts. Yet this hurt yields relief because little by little all things are shifting into focus.

A few months ago, I experienced something that turned my world around. Not a religious conversion; my religious conversion has always been slow and measured, tiny fractions of turns, slight shifts in the way I know God and myself and the other, a steady turning despite the ebb and flow of doubt and praise, but altogether nothing hugely interesting. No, this conversion was the discovery of the key to my coded past; all the old suppressed emotions and inexplicable actions snapped suddenly into focus.

And now I begin to understand who I am and now I begin to understand that I will never begin to understand who you are, who he is, who she is. Complexity is difficult, but beautiful and human. Still, love is the reason, the purpose, the end and the means; love remains silent, asks questions; love hurts, then heals. [So what if that’s cliché, it’s true.]

I pray for redemption of our pasts, individual and collective. Our pasts taint our presents, dictate how we act now. I pray we redeem the present from insignificance, because each day is a gift, as is each breath, and moment.

And I am learning so powerfully that there is even grace and redemption in these dismal grey days. Gloom hovers above like these clouds that threaten, only threaten, rain, never releasing relief. The fiery copper beech looks like judgment today; the lake, disturbed and restless. That half-minute walk from one building to the next when walked alone feels like an eternity; the wind gnaws at my skin and absolute fear and loneliness well up in the deepness of my stomach. It’s that restlessness in the air that feels like this so carefully constructed world is just a house of cards, and the defenses around myself which hang together just perfectly are falling down.

But there is always grace, redemption, forgiveness. Sometimes the defenses are salvaged, the house remains standing, and there is tea, blankets, no fire but warm radiators, and friends. But other times, all things collapse, are stripped away, leave just flesh and backbone, a beating heart. But there, love is made manifest. Sometimes so simply but enough: a hug or a few words, a knowing look. Other times I wonder how they can love so well, so perfectly: walking and talking equally or climbing under the covers sobbing praying prophesying singing. Realizing that you and I are the same: weak, vulnerable, broken, in need, unable to live alone.

We learn from one another to be brave in our love.

Today, or rather this one moment now, I am at peace; I have drunk the gift of this moment. I can’t say I won’t retreat back into that restless fear and doubt, that state of unease, even within the hour. But now, this moment, I have succeeded. Illumination comes like lightning, and then is gone, but in the cloudy haze of irresolution, it is these little moments that make it worth it. Moments where everything becomes clear for just one moment before it fades again, when the spheres of person and person collide and we understand each other.

On a walk in the Lake District

2008-09-03T05:58:00.000-07:00

It’s too difficult to say in words or capture with a camera how this place affects me: the absolute largeness of this place, the heaviness of the gray storm clouds, the openness of the fields, the grandeur of the mountains, the gently rippling lakes. Besides, these things have already been described more adequately than I can describe them more times than I can count.

There were times these past few days when I stood on the edge of a cliff and spread open my arms and tried to take it all in. If I tried to list it all this would only be the beginning:
the pattern of the stones in the path
the cleanness of the air
that after-the-rain scent
roadside flowers
misty rain on my face
the wind pushing me this way and that
the warmth of my body fighting against the cold of the air
birds singing their morning song
the tripping of a stream over stones
the surprising bleat of a sheep three feet from the pathway
the drip of rain from the trees and the sound of rain falling just over this next hill
the swish of the wind in the trees and through the grass
the British accents of these two grandparently figures coming my way
the shuffling crunch of gravel under my feet

And when I experience everything together, at once, it is the strangest sensation. There are no faint stirs of delight in my soul; my heart beats as normal—no racing, no stillness like it used to when faced with beauty of such magnitude. I long to be young again, when I knew how to be quiet and still, when I knew how to let the outside seep into my soul and revive it, when God was in everything I could see.

But now I am seeing something different, that beauty doesn’t have to be life-changing, that beauty can become so much a part of a life that it’s hardly perceptible. All things have become beautiful, and so beauty is no longer a surprise. It’s not a loss, but a blessing. My life is no longer a line of dull moments punctuated by amazing moments of passion and beauty, but has become a series of beautiful moments strung together.

Perhaps that is why I am not so dramatically affected by these expanses of beautiful nature. I know God is faithful, and I know this world will be just as beautiful tomorrow as it is today, whether in the city or in the countryside, in sunshine or in rain.

And instead of trying to fit the largeness of this created world in my little soul, I turn to smaller simpler things. My eyes are being trained to see the significance in the insignificant, little things that other people walk past without a second glance. The raindrops on telephone wires, a sign that nature still wins over industrialization. The long rocky path with its twists and turns, forks and dead-ends. Little forgotten streams forcing their way across pebbles and through grass down and down until they empty themselves out into the lake. The rusty orange leaves contrasted with countless shades of greens, the glowing green of the leaves when light shines through.

Green. I love green, especially in comparison to the overwhelming hot brown deadness of home this time of year. There I was in love with the blue of the sky, the blue of the ocean. But here…here I am in love with green, all the many shades of green, the brightness, the deepness, the solemnity. And I think it is mostly the green of this place that makes this corner of the world feel so alive.

edinburgh. week one.

2008-08-27T03:37:00.000-07:00

I hate writing about trips. I would rather live than write, experience than think, feel than speak.

there's just so much. my days are filled with events and plays and concerts and getting lost and unlost and seeing new things and tasting new foods and getting rained on and having conversations with these beautiful people here.

many of the other students here have not travelled much outside of America, and it is refreshing for me to witness their excitement about all these european things they have never seen.

highlights so far:
soweto gospel choir
scottish dance theatre
the sir walter scott monument
matthew bourne's dorian gray
the absolute overwhelming greenness of the gardens and the mountains
the castle on top of the hill
funk it up about nothin' [shakespeare's much ado about nothing set in modern times with a dj and lots of rap and hip hop]
nepalese food
the jazz bar
witnessing a fight in a pub with shattered glass and security guards
actually being old enough to get into pubs and jazz bars
steak pie and irn bru at midnight
john donne
walking everywhere possible

more later. or not.

untitled. cummings.

2008-07-03T23:51:00.000-07:00

your homecoming will be my homecoming-

my selves go with you,only i remain;
a shadow phantom effigy or seeming
(an almost someone always who's noone)

a noone who,till their and your returning,
spends the forever of his loneliness
dreaming their eyes have opened to your mourning

feeling their stars have risen through your skies:

so,in how merciful love's own name,linger
no more than selfless i can quite endure
the absence of that moment when a stranger
takes in his arms my very lifes who's you

-when all fears hopes beliefs doubts disappear.
Everywhere and joy's perfect wholeness we're.

why is it never enough

2008-06-20T07:12:00.000-07:00

anymore to be here in this place?

no matter where here is:
wrapped deep in warm blankets late into the day
crowded in a corner on the 1 train
eavesdropping in columbus circle
museum-hopping
in the shadows of skyscrapers
or home, even, though I haven't been home

I'm learning that I've forgotten how to stop look be.

the place where everything is yes.

2008-06-15T08:50:00.001-07:00

no, I haven't found it yet.
it sounds wonderful though.
but maybe I'm on the road which leads there?

maybe it's only in creation:
in books or movies.
music.
pens and brushes.

or maybe it's just around the dinner table,
in laughter and conversation.

or gardens in the airy light of morning,
wide empty fields lit by starlight.

cummings thought it was springtime.

personally, I think it might be on the other side of the moon.
you know, the side you can't see.
the side that is all mine.

I'm all written out.

2008-05-29T12:28:00.000-07:00

give me two weeks.
I'll be back.

and go listen to rosie thomas.

with arms wide open

2008-05-02T23:21:00.000-07:00

the light was filtering through the skylights, but our heads were all bowed away from the marvelous grace of God.
encircle us in your arms and hold us to your breast. enliven us, quicken our spirits, and sharpen our hearts to be aware of your presence. penetrate through the cloudy darkness and let us breathe deeply the clean new air.
our feet are dusty, we are all over dirty: clean us, wash us in that stream of red. rain down your blood, cover us with your grace, forgive forgive forgive. grant us peace.
we are all one. broken yet beautiful, for it is through our weaknesses that we are made strong.
let us take ownership of this story, to be alive and satisfied, always being made new.

my arms are wide open, for giving and taking, embracing and loving.
for massages, writing, improv piano.
for cradling, for holding hands, for little works of love.
to keep steady while spinning, or walking on a tightrope.
to invite, to bring in, to equip, to send out.
for surrendering, giving up, letting go.
to love and be loved, to give and be given, to grow in grace.

make us instruments of your peace;
where there is hatred, let us sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is discord, union;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.

grant that we may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
for it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
st. francis

packing.

2008-05-01T20:06:00.000-07:00

two years down. I'm half-way done.
I'm packing to go home for two days then to return to a completely different westmont for mayterm.
strange.

I have funny goosebumps right now. this feeling is hard to put into words.
I don't know many seniors, but I know who they are and I know the impact they've had on this community. and they're leaving for good. who will step up and take their place?
and there are others who I won't see until january, or even august of next year.

I'm not sad or excited to leave, or for these people to leave. it feels like it's time, and at the same time it doesn't.
what is a few more minutes, a few more days, a few more months, a few more years?

all becomes memory soon enough. and we've had some good times, and we've had some bad times, but the next step will be good and bad as well--and sooner than later, we'll all be graduated and westmont will be far far in the back of our minds, just another isolated incident that can be condensed into a half of a second thought.
hmm. anyhow, back to packing.

what if I told you that wasn't it at all?

2008-04-25T08:35:00.000-07:00

my roses have all wilted. I have four dead flowers: two yellow, one orange, one red.

the magic of this place is slipping through my fingers, the beauty of these people is disappearing before my eyes.
I guess this happens often enough for me, though, every time I take a little trip by myself even if it's just downtown for an hour. it reminds me that this place won't last forever, that time is a vortex that swirls ever faster as death approaches. and death is approaching, time is quickening its pace.
each person has to deal with it eventually, and I have no words to speak at a time like this: her grandpa, her brother's girlfriend's parents, his grandma, his mother, their daughter.
still, death isn't the tipping point. it is today, this moment now, here in this place, not in an hour, or tomorrow: today--today is the day of salvation.

and how do you get past knowing something in your head to believing in your heart? especially for one made out of tin who thinks herself heartless.
I wish I could cry, I wish silence wasn't my way of feeling beauty. I wish there was something else to write about, something I haven't written a million times over already, but today my eyes are old, my mind tired, they only see what and how they've seen before.

what is this all about? when change is whistling through the trees, and all you hear is the darkness whispering, softly at first then louder and louder until chaos, a polyphony of a night with no stars only eerie ghastly moonlight, what is this really all about?
what are we doing here giggling about awkward situations, engaging in sarcasm wars, complaining about overcommitment? it's the same as it's always been, there will always be more to do, and everything takes care of itself eventually. these friendships, they say, will last forever--but somehow I feel like that's not for me. I have no sense of loyalty, I want to spread my wings and fly out the window, but I'm only hitting the glass again and again and again, leaving nothing but blood smears on the window.

am I the only one who feels this absolute disconnect? we stare at the space between us, the circles of our plates mirroring the clouds that encircle us each in isolation. I hardly see you as you sip your coffee and brush the hair off your shoulder; I hardly hear your words, I nod assent, but the words won't come; I wasn't listening hard enough. I wonder if you're even real, if you're as self-absorbed as I am, if you don't hear my words the way I don't hear yours. will we crumble into pieces if I break through these spheres and touch you?

his name was James, the most beautiful man I had ever met. he was in his 50's or 60's probably, his skin was dark perfect chocolate black, his tight black curls sprinkled with grey, his voice deep slow and smooth, soothing, like honey. in a half hour he taught me more about life than any class had, he showed me that he believed in my ability. somehow this man knew me by simply looking at me; he looked straight into my eyes and said things about me that I had never realized about myself until he said them. and suddenly I wanted to run away far far away from sunny santa barbara, away from my turquoise tower on a hill, away from my chinese past, away from the lies of myself that I and others have believed. all I wanted was to start again on the piercingly cold dirty streets with this man who, in half an hour, was more of a grandfather--or father even, for that matter--than mine.

but how do you hold on to that feeling? I suddenly feel so robbed; the thing about emotions is they need space to breathe, to be. you mustn't speak about them or they will be lost forever, floating somewhere in the air between my mouth and your ear. and now this desire is just another silly dream of mine that I really don't want at all. I can't. I'm too stuck in my spoiled rich girl mentality to let myself.

but no I think what I really, absolutely, deep-down-inside-of-me, honestly want is eternal now and the ability to make this...everything...okay, and then, better than okay.
let's throw open the windows, lock all the doors, and let the wind blow the posters off the walls.
a long long drive by myself, the walk to dante out on that green hillside, leaving tracks in the untouched waist-high grass.
star-gazing, bonfires, hymn-singing, the boardwalk, catching fireflies, if only for old times' sake.
and one of these days, I'll blow out the speakers while screaming my lungs out til I have no voice left.
I want home to be home, I want to cry til I can't cry anymore, I want to speak, unafraid, audibly, without disclaimers, absolutely independent of pen and paper.

two more months. two months until I disappear into oblivion, become nameless, faceless, voiceless again.
then one and a half before I resurrect with an identity again, for quite a long while.
but two months--two months, girl, your jar is open: the windows are wide open, and even if the doors refuse to lock and are banging open and shut they are there too if you want them.

___

too bad but it's the life you lead
you're so ahead of yourself that you forgot what you need
though you can see when you're wrong, you know
you can't always see when you're right

you've got your passion, you've got your pride
but don't you know that only fools are satisfied?
dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true
when will you realize vienna waits for you?

slow down, you crazy child
take the phone off the hook and disappear for awhile
it's all right, you can afford to lose a day or two
when will you realize vienna waits for you?

one by one

2008-04-18T22:37:00.000-07:00

one by one i write
all my marginalized half-poems down
and make them whole.

the illegible scribbles
the train wrecks of thought
all collided in that inch of vertical white space
in my music history notebook.

and then i know why all this must be written,
why these words need to be read by invisible eyes:

it's because you, the one who mouths silently
my poems by a moon-filled window,
fall in love with words first,
before you fall in love with me.