Be Still.

Oh, July.

2009-07-22T00:02:00.001-05:00

Suddenly,

I want something beautiful.

It’s not enough to take the day by storm,
Or end it knowing I have spent my waking moments
Doing everything I can to save the best dregs from this cup for last;
To keep the course of true love running smooth;
To keep loud opinions tempered and
The slow but frenzied buzz of politics at bay, where it belongs.

Give me the world instead.
I am in need of one good book, a flashlight, and a pair of shoes
That were not made for heavy lifting.

Give me the road.
Less traveled or no,
I’ll take it,
Even if—especially—
It only brings me home.

I thought I saw a light shine

2008-08-28T15:57:00.003-05:00

I've been putting off writing this post for ages, so I'll just get to the point.

The truth is, I'm not sure what I'm doing here. I don't know who my audience is, nor do I know whom I want it to be. I don't know that this is my medium. I don't feel like uploading snazzy pictures. I'm not ready to talk yet about the Post-It notes stuck to my mind's eye. That empty chair on my side of the aisle. How the skyline looks at night from our front window when I can't sleep. How sweet marriage is, how natural, how hard to reorient one's life around another's. Saying vows in the mist. How nothing that happened after my father died felt like it was for me. The showmanship of death. The last message he left on my phone. The very mixed feelings I have about my best friend's moving out of state. The relief of collapse, of coming undone in a quiet place and admitting--to God, to myself, to the air--that I am simply managing, and that that in itself can be a form of praise when the grief of a loss is deep enough.

These are things I long to press into paper, but I can't. It has been very quiet here amidst the rush that summer always brings. I've been waiting. Waiting, I think, to know with certainty how I feel about the great swing of loss and gain this year has brought me. I do want to write that, and I will.

But not here.

I care too much that the world see a version of me that is honest. I think, though, that what ends up here is more than a little ad hoc and often -- well, sad. I've always written more when feeling blue. (Do people still say that?) And I hate that, in the randomness of it all, this picture you get of me isn't honest. So, here goes. Honest thoughts. Here's what comes to my mind just now: I'm just a girl who got married and lost her father and whose best friend moved out of state, eating Oreos before cardio, struggling with how her identity has changed, interested in making a difference in the world and figuring out what, exactly, that means. I live in an attic with a wonderful man in the great city of Boston, and I know some wonderful people, and I've experienced some extraordinary things. I'm funny when you catch me out of print, and I'm genuinely happy. I just spent a fantastic weekend on the Harbor Islands, playing volleyball in the dirt till I looked like my native roots. I find great value in my faith, and I want to write about that, but I'm tired of Christian apologetics and aware that I can err on the side of dogmatic in text. And I hate -- hate! -- dogma. I'm currently wondering whether people who find it hard to believe in the presence of God believe still in Sin -- and when I say that, I mean the kind of institutional selfishness that lets over half a world live in poverty and grows corn that can't be eaten, never mind the famines raging. I tend to preach. I listen to my own sermons. I get emotional when I don't understand things or am not naturally good at something. I'm not always nice, and I've abandoned some of my friends when they needed me most. The opposite is also true. Fortunately for all of us, I often think, there's Grace. We may be moving from our current church because of their stance on women. Then again, we may stick it out and cause a ruckus. I am notorious for drinking half a beer and getting bored with it, but I can handle a bottle of tequila. I'm not reading enough and I'm not writing enough, and I'm overdue on my thank-you notes. I sing a lot -- out loud, to other people, to myself. My house is halfway unpacked. It's six o'clock on Thursday evening, and I'm still in my pajamas. The Oreos are gone. I feel a move across the ocean or to another coast is on my horizon. I'm not sure how I feel about that or what it will look like. I need a new book to read. I miss my piano. And that cardio ain't kicking itself.

So, friends, to sum it all up: I'm rethinking this blog. I am not sure what its future is, though it has one. We've been talking about using it differently than as a dumping ground for half of my feelings -- perhaps writing together on life in Boston, on marriage, on going green slowly but surely, on our kitchen mishaps with all our new toys. (Seriously, one a week!) But the intensity of the past few months, and how I reacted to them (or failed to) on this blog, illustrate to me that it essentially isn't serving any real purpose for me. I would love for that to change. I would love for it to feel all shiny and new. As we think about that, I have to admit I keep this link open more out of my own curiosity than anybody else's. It seems to me that the things I have to say belong in other places, either squirreled away in journals only my children see or out in a different kind of open. Unfortunately, I'm kind of all-or-nothing -- and since this little experiment isn't getting my all at the moment, you know which camp it lands in.

Till then.

It is in ever-fixed mark

2008-06-13T07:22:00.005-05:00

Well, this is it: in 48 hours, I'm making good on my four-year promise to "marry that man."

As you can see, he's got a habit of losing wagers/gambling bets when it comes to me. What can I say? Lucky in life, lucky in love.

Off to adventure. So long!

Loss.

2008-04-24T23:34:00.003-05:00

I wish I had bigger words, and better, for all of this. I wish that, right now, I knew how to explain the emptiness his absence leaves. I wish I could do more than know that, for the rest of my life, I will think of his and how it helped to prove mine. I wish I could adequately -- effectively -- say how grateful I am for the many, many kindnesses and thoughtful words that have been shown to me these past few weeks.

My father died unexpectedly a month after my last post. More than anything, I wish that I could parse out the pieces of hope I find in knowing what I know and how I know it: that death and life walk hand in hand with one another. That they give each other meaning. That there is life and hope beyond this, and that it was the greatest honor I have known, and an even greater measure of Grace, to hold my father's hand as he entered into it at last.

This is faith, then. To believe in what you cannot write with your hands, what you cannot form with your tongue. To choose to see when the way ahead is dark.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again, look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

- Walt Whitman

Writing Letters in This Dark

2008-03-09T23:02:00.003-05:00

When I write, I want the page to open, like a gift.
I do not want to have to work so hard to say that
I am well, and that I think of you often, and that
the thing I cannot figure --
the thing that must be said, that cannot be said --

Is how to cross from my world into yours,
How to carry you with me wherever I go.

from memory

2008-02-26T00:00:00.002-05:00

Let me not
to the marriage of true minds
admit impediments.

Love is not love
which alters when it alteration finds
or bends with the remover to remove -- oh, no.

It is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken,
It is the Star to every wandering bark.

[something, something] height be taken.

[Something, something, something, something,
something something, big finish]:

And if this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ,

And no man ever loved.

2008-02-20T19:46:00.001-05:00

Belated Be Mine.

2008-02-19T20:57:00.002-05:00

Somebody else, I'm hoping, will post the pictures, but it has been a wonderful past few days. A brief work trip down to Fort Lauderdale provided brief respite from the February gray. I spent Valentine's at the Milky Way with Juli, CB, Rachel, and Ms. Stoner. [Side note: It's made Bryan and I laugh in relief to realize that neither one of us cares much for Valentine's. I prefer my romance to be unforced and budget-friendly, not artificially expensive due to demand -- which, it so happens, brings up the most frustrating aspect of planning a wedding day. A day should not cost almost as much as surgery to remove a spinal tumor. And ours won't; but I digress.] Friday found me staring, amazed, as the students Bryan and I work with dazzled with their dancing, singing, and kung fu panache at BC's Korean Student Association/Chinese Student Association. Saturday was lovely: I served CB pecan pancakes in bed, made so much coffee, read books, talked politics, puttered around my room throwing things out with abandon, raided my closet for forgotten finds, curled up on the couch with CB, and went to bed early. I did manage to catch a cold somehow, but oh, well. I spent Sunday meditating and listening to one of Kevin's old sermons online, then rushed to meet Kim at the ICA. We stared overlooking the Harbor, and I remembered (as I do whenever I'm with her) why I love being around her. (Kim, if you read this, it's quite simple: you laugh with your whole body, and your heart is never far from your sleeve.) I met Bryan at the airport and captured him for an evening and a day. We shook off being threatened by a hostile cabbie with home-cooked meals, morning walks at the World's End, steaming clams and napping.

Circles of quiet.

The Full

2008-02-15T23:36:00.003-05:00

I walked home tonight singing, alone, and thought of you crying this week over your lost hearing. In the wind moving over me I felt your hands smoothing my hair, washing my face, coaxing me to sleep. Your house was always home.

This loss so great, which I know you are reading as the beginning of the end -- I will not let you disappear beneath its calm, deadly waters.

I have no chair, no church, no philosophy;
I lead no man to a dinner-table, library, or exchange;
But each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll,
My left hand hooking you round the waist,	1205
My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents, and a plain public road.

Not I—not any one else, can travel that road for you,
You must travel it for yourself.

If you tire, give me both burdens, and rest the chuff of your hand on my hip,

And in due time you shall repay the same service to me;

1215

For after we start, we never lie by again.

Till Death

2008-02-11T23:57:00.000-05:00

I should have made this public weeks ago when it actually happened, but grand intentions to write a meganarrative about our engagement gave way, as intentions so often do, to harsh, cold, exuberant reality. Suffice it to say that we can look forward to a lifetime of awkward gawking and forced smiles.

Exhibit A:

A June wedding is planned.

Never a Bad Picture of Me I'm Unwilling to Post

2008-01-28T22:58:00.001-05:00

Miss this guy. (He's in Istanbul this week.) Miss this hike. (Bottom of Peyto Lake, Banff National Park, Canada.) LOVE this picture. (Five second challenge for standing in glacial waters. I did not survive. )

Open (True Story)

2008-01-26T23:34:00.000-05:00

Today, I watched my own body pull away from itself. I don't know how to explain it other than to say that I realized I did not want to be touched, did not want to be looked over, did not want to be engaged by anybody else sharing the Metro platform with me for the simple reason that I couldn't be bothered. My shoulders sagged inward under the weight of the public's gaze, and my limbs folded in. My legs crossed themselves. I felt tight, mean, small.

It came to me that, by refusing to engage the people around me other than when I feel like it, I am molding a spirit that sends a very clear signal: "You are not welcome to talk to me." I'd always wondered how the old woman waiting for the 66 at 7:37 every morning got so bitter. I suppose I always assumed it was rotten luck, a bad divorce, mental illness, a lack of hope, a sense of entitlement coupled with a lack of payout. Today, I looked down at my body, twisted in on itself. I saw the distance I was creating between me and the man sitting next to me. It struck me that bitterness doesn't come at once. It doesn't descend upon us from a single tragedy. It is the result, years in the making, of a series of small decisions in which we choose not to see the other, choose not to have the awkward but necessary conversation, choose to remain alone. And I, who covet privacy even above friendship, was (and am) in danger of walking that road.

I need to be held accountable. I need to open.

Testing

2007-12-23T23:42:00.000-05:00

New links to the left, ahoy!

Words and Phrases

2007-12-07T16:26:00.000-05:00

morsel
Nat King Cole
Bing
'nog
Candler Cottage
steady recovery
employed
Quebec in May
sweetened condensed milk
"It was a slow set of afternoons."
mulled
mosey
bruised
battered
but holy, Amen.

(push replay)

Things in My Room at the Moment That Do Not Make Good Bedfellows

2007-11-13T23:16:00.001-05:00

1. Jesus the Amazing Resurrected Croton (delicate)
2. Any one of the 50 spiders I've seen this week pushed out from other rooms by paint fumes
3. Lotrimin (which isn't working -- advice? Also, thank God for the power of internet confessions)
4. Squirrel, Party of Four. Definitely NOT a fan.

Thug Life: For Craig and Karly

2007-11-08T18:58:00.000-05:00

Pros and Cons of losing (the top half of) one's front tooth at a football game:

Pros:

- Making Juli laugh just by opening my mouth first thing in the morning
- Straws
- Being shooed out of stores (good story fodder)
- No one blinks anymore when I fake a British accent
- Street cred up the wazoo

Cons:

- Inadvertent whistling
- Awkward interviews
- Removable "fake" teeth on my bookshelf
- Being mifunderftood

Annie Lennox and the Massachusetts Board of Bar Examiners

2007-11-02T07:17:00.000-05:00

I thought I'd share a bit of good news with the few folks here who a) do not have Facebook or b) are not my family.

I passed the Massachusetts bar exam!

[cartwheels, champagne, fancy dinners and street dancing]

stock.

2007-10-22T21:51:00.000-05:00

Lately, I am:

accidentally killing plants
separating earth from sky
eating lots of noodles
celebrating birthdays
mourning losses
remembering Amanda
missing Seattle
reading Rilke and Robertson Davies
intrigued by Judaism
polishing up writing samples
buying new suits
unleashing surprises
riding the bus
doing Beth impressions
using chopsticks incorrectly (incurable)
watching magic happen on the pianoforte
whispering Italian
spending time with our community groups
bowling the HECK out of some capri-haters
wondering whether I will see my girls this Thanksgiving
banished to the realm of football
painting houses
filling space.

O, Great Pumpkin

2007-10-17T16:21:00.000-05:00

A potentially failed attempt to make Paula Deen's Pumpkin Gingerbread Trifle for tonight's college community group function was, at least, educational. For one thing, I learned that regular canned pumpkin is NOT a substitute for pumpkin pie filling. And I accidentally made butter.

Yes, butter. And people wonder how I spend my free time.

Jessica's Fail-Proof Butter Recipe

1. It is freaking ridiculous to attempt to hand-whip 4 pints of heavy cream into a frenzied, sugary, oh-so-delicious state. Recognize this, and attempt it anyway (also: you are cheap. Let's be friends and not buy kitchen essentials together.)
2. When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to prove to oneself that one can hand-whip 4 pints of heavy cream into whipped, a small voice will insist in minute 18 that a blender is a suitable alternative to an electric mixer, that it can at least "speed the process along." Listen.
3. Set the blender on high. Blend. Wonder why you own a blender but no mixer.
4. When the consistency of the top two inches of your cream looks sufficiently whipped, spoon it out. Gasp, because what you see at the bottom of your blender will be...
5. ...at least 6 inches of pure, unadulterated butter.

The accounting.

2007-10-05T12:47:00.000-05:00

I suppose that, at some point, I should tell you what I've been up to. Or I can make another empty promise about getting to it "someday" when I've got a little more time than I have now. Choose your pick.

The weekend ahead involves more road tripping. This time we're venturing deep into the heart of New England, breaking out the tenting gear for one last comfortable hoorah before the weather makes camping a question of endurance rather than delight. I'll be retracing steps and forcing myself into the role of unwanted tour guide as we head west into the Berkshire Mountains, stopping here to pick up some wayward Connecticutians before turning north into Vermont. (Bryan: "But if we actually stop there--if we successfully take this trip--what will you talk about incessantly every. Single. Time we are west of Springfield?")

I am expecting great things: iced coffee, waking up to a slight chill rising off the shores of Lake Champlain, the triumphant return of the Tiger Dog, mimosas at Penny Cluse, the great unwashed masses descending upon the town of Burlington, small streets and perfect clapboard churches set against impossibly beautiful New England hills, overuse of the word "quaint," flea markets, maple syrup, as much hiking as we can fit in, cheddar and apple sandwiches, campfires, and French in the air.

It almost makes a girl miss Canada.

Leviathan

2007-10-01T16:45:00.000-05:00

The bus was already full when I got on at Harvard Avenue this morning. I stopped midway through the aisle, choosing my spot based on where I thought I'd be most out of the way of harried commuters rushing in or out. Grabbing the pole to my left, I opened the book my uncle lent me this weekend...and felt a gentle, exploratory tugging at the bottom of my shirt. I looked down, alarmed. A small boy, alone and with eyes like a cat's, was pulling on the sheer material of the makeshift fabric belt that dangled just below the edge of my shirt. He couldn't have been more than four years old.

"Hullo," I smiled -- relieved.

"Hi."

"Are you going to school?"

"No." More tugging. Now, he batted the loose end of my belt. "I am going to see many animals. Two WHOLE turtles! You can't come, either."

"Of course not. But how fun for you!"

Growing bolder, he pulled the fabric till the knot I'd hastily tied began to loosen. I kept waiting for some adult to turn around and reprimand him, for some young mother taking a moment's rest to become aware of what he was doing and call his name sharply. He's four, I found myself thinking. He's bold for four. Flattening out the fabric with his left hand, he made a puppet over his right.

"That's very clever," I said. "Are you making a costume for your hand?"

"No, silly!" He leaned in conspiratorially. "I shouldn't tell you this, but I am actually a dinosaur. There is no costume. That is why I am going to see the turtles. Dinosaurs eat turtles. Did you know that? It's true."

He let out the barest of imitation roars. I laughed, to his delight. The light changed, and a seat opened up in the back of the bus.

"I have to go now," I told him, "but I'll keep your secret...for now. If I promise not to tell the turtles you're coming, will you let me go?"

He nodded. I'd been awake for hours, but he started my day.

Take Anything You Want...

2007-09-24T20:08:00.000-05:00

...just leave me my exercise routine.

Do you know...

2007-09-18T22:21:00.000-05:00

how there can be those fleeting moments in even the most egalitarian of relationships in which you are absolutely certain that you hold 100% of the power?

This was one of them, courtesy of my email this evening:

"Bryan Schnittjer said you two are in a relationship...

Bryan said you are in a relationship on Facebook. We need you to confirm that you are, in fact, in a relationship with Bryan. To confirm this relationship request, follow the link.

Thanks,
The Facebook Team."

Looks like the jig is up.

Back to Life

2007-09-17T11:04:00.000-05:00

We are back from our tramp around the Northwest! Almost 3,000 driving miles, close to as many pictures, and several bear scares later, my body is still three hours behind while my mind is dreaming up the days ahead. It was a good trip, full of unexpected reunions with friends, amazing vistas and varied terrain (glaciers, mountains, subalpine fields, rainforests, the Northwest Pacific coast), BBQ shacks and espressos galore, a minimum of showering opportunities, solitude in the backcountry and teeming cities that I've long desired to see and dreamed of moving to (we shall see). Throughout, I had an intense feeling of gratefulness for the ability to go and see so much of the world; I know that's a gift not to be taken lightly. Gratitude and the desire for many more kinds of people to have the financial ability to appreciate the vastness of wild places == these are my souvenirs.

And no -- to my twinned regret and relief, we encountered not a single bear (nor any other predator, for that matter). The closest we came were some distinctive claw marks on an unfortunate tree and some early-morning tracks. After seeing those, I think even Bryan agreed that THAT is close enough!

New Abode

2007-08-28T22:55:00.000-05:00

Now accepting (well, soon accepting) callers at Candler Cottage. Pictures to follow.

(This post is for Beth S., who has feelings about places. P.S., Beth: I mapped it. It's half a mile from your front door. The summer of love continues into the autumn of affection.)

Tootin' Ye Olde Horn.

2007-08-23T16:52:00.000-05:00

I am, by nature, a rewriter of history. Most storytellers are, I think. That's fitting. We want to be able to reimagine life differently than what it is. We need to birth new worlds, see deeper into moments, find a poet no further away than our own writing table. But it's a problem for me when I find that, in the act of recreating, I can no longer remember things as they really happened. I want the truth AND the lie on hand at all times.

Case in point: my new moniker, "J.C., J.D."

When I remember law school, I feel lonely instantly. I put on a sweater and notice that it's suddenly too tight. I make a pot of coffee. My stomach knots. I breathe in, not the warm invitation of old books and oversized wooden tables of childhood libraries, but the antiseptic smell of a new facility housing nothing but legal reporters and always kept five degrees colder than was comfortable. In mid-August, I feel as though I haven't seen the sun for days.

This is a false memory.

True, these are accurate memories. For parts of my law school career, I was uncertain, unhealthy, and alone in a new culture -- one I wasn't sure I liked -- for large amounts of time. But I don't want these memories to overtake the rest of what happened here, because the entire truth is this: in these three years, I became. I stepped foot on the very ground that prompted me to law school in the first place. I helped people who were too afraid of violence to go home at night. Friends found me. One of them encouraged me to put back on my running shoes. Church became a sanctuary. I forgave and was forgiven. The world opened: I got my first passport and unexpectedly lived in London. I fell in love and was loved right back. My kitchen became a new zone of creativity. I showed my written work to someone other than my mother or boyfriend. I gained the confidence to take classes that couldn't help my GPA. I learned that, if anything, I need to dream more deeply than I have. Somewhere along the way, the adventurer within awakened from a long, quiet sleep.

...and on that note, I do hereby solemnly swear and promise to cease and desist from writing only about myself. This city is too darned crazy and wonderful to appear so infrequently here!

"If love is stronger than hate, then war is not all there is."*

2007-08-23T10:24:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, it's a close call.

*Madeleine L'Engle

Two of These Years

2007-08-14T10:07:00.000-05:00

8-13-05, Kigali, Rwanda

For hours, I'd been awake writing. My hands have always proved themselves to be more reliable messengers than my mouth -- my mouth, which I swear is directly connected to that side of me that can be more hyperbolic than measured, more quixotic than true. For a week now, you'd been around every corner I turned. I'd leave where you were, afraid of how quickly we were falling into old patterns of laughter and thought. I wondered what you were after, wondered whether you knew that I was preparing to say goodbye. I had to. You would have known why the instant I said it: I couldn't shake an abiding faith that we belonged, in some way, to each other's worlds. From experience, I knew this was a solitary vision. But now -- now, you followed me, a course of action so unlike everything I knew of you that I began allowing myself to think I was being pursued.

It terrified me. This is what I still do not understand about love: how, when it comes home to one who longs for it, it takes courage to let it in.

In the end, I conceded that my skill was too limited to distill the picture in my head: you and I and a mountaintop, descending. You and I, always you and I. Elemental. Who can say that without sounding trite or overblown? Not I then (nor I now, except you've taught me that you value me for trying). I struck out several lines, buried my papers in a duffel bag, and prayed instead. If I'd learned one thing from this land and these people, it was that prayer was more than a last resort. It was a direct line to peace.

8-14-05, Kigali, Rwanda, to London

The sun was still struggling steadily up the city's terraces when we drove in silence to the airport, taking in the last of a country we both inexplicably loved.

We boarded plane after plane; again, you followed me. Here you were, rescuing me from being pinned by a behemoth of a diamond trader. There you went, asking the newlyweds next to you whether they minded moving over one seat to make room for me.

Somewhere over the Sahara, we changed. You recounted our friendship and told me that you'd come to Africa without any expectations as to who we were. You told me you were leaving with something different. It seemed to me that you spoke for hours, quiet and confident, abandoning too the words you'd written me the night before. You invoked the word intention, and when I asked you what you meant, it was clear you saw it, too...everything I saw, the rest of life ahead of us, an adventure, a companionship, a simultaneous coming home and a striking out. Everything, all at once, together.

I won't ask you whether you remember what happened next; I know you remember. I didn't speak; I couldn't. I didn't want to. I took your hand, though, because THAT I had wanted for a long, impossible time. We landed in London, and you left me almost immediately for Brussels. It would be three months before I'd see you again, three months before I'd know what it felt like to kiss you, how you liked your coffee, whether you were a good tipper, how prone you were to throwing me into piles of wet autumn leaves, how you looked when you were absolutely content. I knew all of that lay ahead of us, and so I said goodbye without concern for any of it. It would come (and it has). I, who could never wait for anything, could wait for you.

Why I Don't Rely on Babelfish:

2007-08-08T16:29:00.000-05:00

As I double-checked a thank you note written in Spanish to my roommate's family, Babelfish offered this lovely little gem as the alleged -- but very incorrect -- English translation of what I wrote:

"Thanks for its generosity and its amiability towards me during this last anus, first with the materials for my maquina of seam and secondly with the abundant gift of the graduation."

At least I know enough Spanish to keep my digestive system out of the picture. As for my "maquina of seam," well...that's another story.

"I continue to use your name for my blessing."

2007-08-08T09:04:00.000-05:00

In broken English, a man I met two years ago this week in Rwanda writes to inform me that he appreciates the (very) small favors I can do for him, the latest being so simple to our American eyes: searching the Internet to find potential scholarship money for his wife, who wants to study law in a Rwandan school.

I wonder if he knows how great an honor I count it that he calls me friend.

Feeling Pennsylvania

2007-07-27T11:49:00.001-05:00

Recipe for Proper Celebrations of the End of an Era:

Two beloved friends and intentional conversation
Sushi boats and coconut milk
Sidewalk prayer for sending off
Making up history as one walks the mean (and suddenly park-less?) streets of Providence
Hugs tempered by humidity (New England, I still love you)
Planning visits to Japan
Writing lists like this
Reading things like this
Weekends that arrive ahead of schedule
Train rides
Laughing with first-year friends in between Rounds 5 and 6 on the steps of the ICA
New babies
Iced drinks and iPods
Being a third-party witness to other people's kindness
Thumbing through the spines of old, beloved books
Not wanting to read a THING for the first time in my life...
...but eagerly seeking book recommendations for next week, when such temporary madness will have passed
Cleaning rooms and making floors shine like the sea
Families that refuse to stop growing
Good news from afar
Road trips with my best friend
New music
Leaving the scene of the crime
Waiting.

The bar exam closes a chapter, and I'm taking some time off before the next one begins.

It's Showtime, Kids.

2007-07-23T11:00:00.000-05:00

"Delight in me, and I will give you what your heart truly desires. Fret not -- it only causes harm."

Ready.

"Dual Purpose" Evidence

2007-07-20T20:53:00.000-05:00

...of both how I feel right now (missing some hair, boobs have shrunk from stress), and how maybe American prisons are potentially not as wholesome as those in the Philippines.

Perspective

2007-07-19T08:21:00.001-05:00

We set the pace.
But this press of time --
take it as a little thing
next to what endures.

All this hurrying
soon will be over.
Only when we tarry
do we touch the holy.

Young ones, don't waste your courage
racing so fast,
flying so high.

See how all things are at rest--
darkness and morning light,
blossom and book.

- Rilke

One more week, and this will be another goal achieved -- not more than that, but not less.
Rebecca and I will be leaving for Albany Monday night to take the NY and multistate portions of the bar exam. We'll be driving straight back to Boston on Wednesday night and taking the MA bar on Thursday. Bryan and I will be driving down to CT directly following the bar to say farewell to Kenji and Katie M., who've overwhelmed me by delaying their departure to Tokyo on my behalf. We'll continue driving to PA that night because there's a new wee babe in the family to meet and some Philadelphia to be seen.

One more week, and the summer will finally arrive!

In Dreams

2007-07-10T11:24:00.000-05:00

What I find most difficult about studying for the bar exam isn't the amount of material I'm expected to memorize or the inane head fakes from the examiners we're told to expect. I've learned to ignore oft-repeated statements like these, which I've heard countless times in my bar prep course: "If you leave the exam feeling good about yourself, I'd worry. You probably don't have a good enough understanding of the law to appreciate how difficult the questions were." The bar will happen, and then it will be over. I will pass, or I will fail; in the latter case, I will suffer the slings of outrageous embarrassment and retake the exam. Or will I? I don't know. So much remains to be seen these next months.

It's the isolation that gets to me. Bryan turns the handle to my front door so rarely these days, of necessity; when he does, I find myself greedily inquiring about ordinary things. Errands. Traffic. Weather and sailing conditions. What it feels like to be outside on an ordinary day, to have an afternoon to oneself. I am dreaming, too, about the ordinary in great detail: signing a lease; painting rooms in the new house and potting plants; hosting dinners; making friends with my sewing machine and journals; books to read, letters to write, hikes to take; talking my neighbors into turning down their music; sweeping porch steps; plunging a toilet; even taking a nap! In each instance, I have awoken, not wondering whether all imagination's fled even my subconscious in this process but refreshed and eager, knowing that the plain world lurks just beyond the brink, waiting.

This poverty of time enables countless quiet encounters.

I gotta admit,

2007-07-04T23:16:00.001-05:00

some days are just absolutely Lovely.

Fourth of July: A Play in One Act

2007-07-03T22:00:00.000-05:00

Oh, well.
Love to you all,
Signed,
Dangerous with a Macbook
(there will also be waterparks)
(and childproof locks)
(safety features!!!)
(I hope)
(although I am tall enough for every ride)
(I hope)

Setting Fire to the Third Bar

2007-06-27T07:45:00.000-05:00

I call this series, "Someone Has Obviously Gotten a Macbook."

The inimitable Jana Weeks, a fellow Connecticut transplant loving the Boston life.
She's true-blue and normally appears just when I need an old friend most.

Self-explanatory (I hope).

"The Fam" grows ever larger: Now with Corinne, who can call a foal from across a pasture.

I call this series, "Somebody Else Took These Pictures."

Embarking for PEI, Canada, 2 minutes after emailing my last-ever school assignment.
Fellow trippers: me, roommates Rebecca and Julianna, and my sister Jen, who is
wearing my shirt!!!

Memorial Day Weekend Sporting Extravaganza: My brother Patrick,
SO Bryan, me, my father, my sister Jen. Yes, we are a tall people.

Mini-Reunion/Graduation/Scott's Farewell Party:
Aunt Yvette, Mom, and Mere Mere

Embee does something called "Grateful Fridays." It's Wednesday, but I'm pretty grateful for the myriad chances the folks above have given me to break up my nights and days, otherwise spent in the dark cave of my apartment learning the law, with embarrassing stories and road trips and culinary experiments (hazelnut rice, anyone?) and water balloon fights.

Today, I'm grateful for other people's wisdom.

"The nature of the relationship, then, between the ideal and the real needs to be one of grace, of unconditional love and acceptance. If this is true, our house isn't divided. The ideal and the real are not fighting each other, and good relationship can begin. Good relationship involves holding onto the ideal and lovingly accepting the real. If the real is loved and accepted, it can be encouraged to grow toward the ideal."

-Henry Cloud

Alive, Well, and Wearing Leggings.*

2007-06-15T13:01:00.000-05:00

To the few paying attention:

I'm on a brief, bar exam-inspired hiatus from all things Blog.

I am not dead, nor have I been institutionalized.

I am not vacationing in Maui, nor has my new obsession with popcorn come between me and my keyboard to such extent that I am no longer able to type.

Here's the facts, ma'am:

Graduated law school several weeks ago.

Am now studying to take both the NY and MA bars at the end of July.

Squeezing every inch of life out of spring and summer regardless of the above. Asking an apology of the universe that I don't have more to give right now.

Currently obsessed with Canada.

Itching for a long road leading away and no curfew.

Thanks to others' extreme generosity, in possession of some much-needed gifts and tools.

Object in picture is:

Still in love.

Still growing.

Still grateful.

Still graced.

Still learning how to fail so that failure counts for something other than its own lesson.

Still learning how good it is to abdicate thrones.

*Tonight only. Come. Sit. Get up, pull hair to side, and dance.

Le Weekend

2007-05-04T15:16:00.000-05:00

I still have 45 pages to fully research and write and only five days in which to do it, but here's what I've learned from law school:

Babies need holding.
Birthdays need celebrating.
Friends need visiting.
Family needs seeing.
Trees need climbing.
Roads need driving.
Caution needs throwing, out, out to the wind!

Dear God,

2007-05-03T14:05:00.000-05:00

I don't think I'd like to be in Your position, close enough that You can speak to us but far enough away that we pretend we can't hear.

Shoo, fly!

2007-04-30T16:47:00.000-05:00

I like to think that people catch at least 75% of the socially awkward things I do on a daily basis for their own amusement. Here I am, sitting calmly on the back porch typity typity typing away, looking for all the world as serene as Meryl Streep conked out on Codeine, when along comes the first black fly of the summer...ZIP!!!...into my headband. This has happened before; I'm an adult, and it's a fly; I love the outdoors and am used to critters after living in this house as long as I have. And yet the only thing I can think to do is to tear into my headband as if I were possessed.

No matter how much I resist it, there is a teeeeensy strain of the irrational somewhere inside me.

What a beautiful day to be up on a porch overlooking the city. Flies be hanged!

I find

2007-04-17T12:56:00.000-05:00

the art of becoming to be sometimes
the most difficult of things. Here freedom
meets responsibility,
not for bills or children or
husbands or wives or homes
with caving walls or crackling ceilings, but
for what the Past was and who it made me out to be,
for the things I learned to lack and the way I lived out Love,
eking out a beggar's feast for lack of good soil, rain, and a gardener.

I become in the crawl space between confession and mercy.

"On Pebble Island, there lived three frogs: Marilyn, August, and one who was always somewhere else. That one's name was Jessica."

2007-03-31T21:34:00.000-05:00

Thanks, Juli. :)

Take Me to Your Leetle Friend

2007-03-12T19:25:00.000-05:00

Next time this happens, I'll make sure to wear something normal people consider "clothing."

On the horizon

2007-02-26T12:32:00.000-05:00

This past weekend:

- Dinner with an old friend who brought a book to read.
- Church around the corner.
- Oscar madness. We almost can't help it.
- Good conversations happening unexpectedly.
- Drawing on the walls. Marking our heights.
- Getting a wee bit punchy with Juli.
- Hugh Grant with Brock, Christina, and Juli.
- Lots of rest in Bryan's absence.
- Put on speaker phone.

This week:
- Juli's birthday!
- Birthday surprises (shhh)
- Quilting with Jana
- Much writing to be done
- HOCKEY. C'est le quebecoise dans mi.
- New Patty Griffin to keep me company.

So, friends, a dilemma. I'm not quite sure what to do with this here Bloggie Blog. I have a desire to write more effectively --- heck, to just write more. I'm not sure how this blog fits into that plan. That's part of why I don't update more frequently. I'd say it's a part of why I never make sense, either, but that's just my usual M.O.

We'll see what happens. I'm praying for some direction about things that may effect this site's future. I'd like to see it reborn as something different than what it is; I'm just not sure what that will look like.

BABY UPDATE: Congratulations to two wonderful couples I got to know through Bryan in Belgium: Carol and Ivar brought baby Reilly into the world last week, and Jess and Vince (Hail, Canada!) welcomed baby Aidan right around the same time -- within a day of each other, I think. I can't wait to meet these kiddos (and it doesn't hurt that meeting them involves some international travel...).

A theology of Hope

2007-02-21T15:58:00.000-05:00

In all of the current madness swirling about because of my beloved country, I try to remember what it means to be children of the Promise, looking ahead and anticipating a future in which humanity itself is resurrected out of sin and past death. What is at stake is so much more than our political freedoms, our access to the polls, our faltering, our international capital, the assurance that our unsteady steps toward racial and gender equality will not have been for nothing -- even human rights (at least to the extent that "human" means only "American citizen") .

What is at stake in our times -- my time; why am I so often loathe to own it? -- is the opportunity to call down the Kingdom, to love and to hope for Love beyond even our most threatening political reality.

I am reminded today that, yes, the cross was a political tool. It served a political function; it sent a political message. It ensured the rule of an imperial power and protected an empire that paved the way for much that was good in the world, and much that was evil.

But the Cross and the God who bore it was lifted far above the political realm of the day--"ahead" of it, as Moltmann would say. Anticipating a brighter dawn. As a follower of that Cross, am I not called to do the same -- to live lifted and to lift up whoever may need lifting? (I'm looking at you, Boston's homeless. I'm looking at me, too, and seeing how many bars I've placed over my heart in the name of my own safety.)

The cross went up over Jerusalem. Its shadow, however, eclipsed the entire world. That is the Promise we are to bring back into the present. It is not all meant to be realized only in the future.

Relatedly...

"To the Editor:

President Bush's characterization of Amnesty International's criticisms of United States human rights abuses as ''absurd'' is ironic (news article, June 1).

If our reports are so ''absurd,'' why did the administration repeatedly cite our findings about Saddam Hussein before the Iraq war? Why does it welcome our criticisms of Cuba, China and North Korea? And why does it cite our research in its own annual human rights reports? [This is true. Amnesty is one of the few international human rights monitors that immigration officials will respect when attempting to mount an asylum claim based on persecution. The U.S. State Department regularly draws the majority of its country conditions reports from Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, especially in those countries in which it no longer has a diplomatic presence.]

No amount of spin can erase the myriad human rights abuses committed by United States officials in the ''war on terror.'' The United States cannot simultaneously claim that it ''promotes freedom around the world'' while detaining tens of thousands at Guantanamo Bay, Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and in Iraq and other locations without charge or trial and allowing those civilian and military officials responsible for orchestrating a systematic policy of torture to escape accountability.

Instead of attacking us, President Bush should insist upon a truly thorough, independent investigation of those who tried to circumvent global prohibitions on torture, and he should open all detention centers to scrutiny by independent human rights groups.

Only then will the world be able to judge whether it is Amnesty International or the president whose perspective deserves to be called ''absurd.''

William F. Schulz
Exec. Dir., Amnesty International
New York, June 1, 2005"

Someday Love Is Gonna Find You

2007-01-30T20:04:00.000-05:00

It is with great sadness that I must announce that you and I are missing the event of the century. God bless the Coolidge Corner Theater and its hosting of this 80's love theme-based sing-a-long. I will be there in spirit this time around, and somebody I know should please please PLEASE be there for me in body!

Sigh. Five minutes later, I'm still certain that I won't be attending what would have been the greatest night of my life.

Incident Report

2007-01-19T18:01:00.000-05:00

When: Tuesday night, around 5 o'clock
Where: Law school parking lot
What: One *%!?# 1998 Mitsubishi Galant. One coldest-day-of-the-year. Four frozen car doors. Zero lighters, and no smokers in the vicinity. One cell phone left at home. One stubborn Canuck. One trunk. One already-broken back seat. And one baseball bat.
Classify As: Things One Learns at Law School

Witnesses claim to have last spotted a white female of above average height answering to the name "More to Love" entering the parking lot around 4:57 p.m. carrying her keys and a blue backpack. When attempts to open her doors failed, the suspect appeared to return to the law school. She was gone for approximately ten minutes. Witnesses inside stated suspect appeared exasperated, confused, and determined to leave "if it kill[ed her]" while enunciating a plan to break into her own vehicle.

Suspect reentered the parking lot, hesitating briefly as a troup of BC freshmen walked by and stared. Suspect managed to open the trunk and, seizing a baseball bat kept inside the trunk for alleged "pick-up baseball games," forced down the back seat of the vehicle. Suspect proceeded to enter the car via the trunk, squeezing self and backpack under the backloading CD player and into the body of the car before becoming temporarily wedged with her feet hanging out of the trunk. (Suspect appeared to be laughing and/or crying at this point.)

Suspect appeared to leave premises with pride intact.

Well, now. This changes everything.

2007-01-19T17:48:00.000-05:00

Since I no longer update my blog regularly enough to hold my head up in public, I was shocked to find that I needed to switch over to some new Blogger account.

THERE WERE COMMENTS, PEOPLE.

ME. I had COMMENTS. Not many comments, mind you, but a lot that I never saw. And now I know why. And so, without further adieu, the answer to those comments:

1. Kim. I love you twice, too. Like most potatoes, you are served best with a side of cheese and bacon.
2. Embee. "Where are we? What the hell?" I am all about music that puts me to sleep, which is why I'm relishing the "Greatest Hits" collection of classical composers I got for Christmas. We seriously need to get together soon before you and Karly both have your bebes. Alternatively, I love bebes and am happy to visit them.
3. Jennifer. You were just a bad kid, and everybody knew it.
4. Christina. The MPRE is over and done with, as I know you know, and it stands for something that basically says that girls who ruin Brock's CLUE! wins are bound to make terrible litigators, which is why I shall litigate nary a thing.
5. Anonymous. Yes, the address in my profile is correct.
6. Mike. Thanks so much. I miss your laughter and perspicacious ways. Hockey soon?
7. Peter. Totally noticed it. Favorite scene: "What do you hear?" "Nothing." [pause] "I hear everything."

It's a whole new world out there, kids -- one with COMMENTS!

Garland.

2006-12-22T12:02:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas, folks! I wish you times of reflection and discovery with your loved ones this holiday. May the "eyes of our hearts" be opened, willing the world around us into the peace that passes all understanding.

brain food

2006-12-18T21:36:00.000-05:00

currently subsisting on: tofu, gyoza and spinach soup (garlic chicken or veggie broth)
currently feeling: cold

addicting, healthy, and warming -- what more could one ask of a food?

Boundaries

2006-12-15T02:14:00.000-05:00

As much balm as challenge,
Bones broken, unset.

There's no rhyme but reason
For the ones that I've met.

I have traveled, I've crumbled,
I lurch and I climb,

Falling over them, vaulting past,
Peering through. Blind.

What purpose, this effort?
At what cost, this grace --

To hold in my hand
your inscrutable face?

God gives us courage, but
Eve lends us style:

Bequeaths to us impulse,
the innocent's guile.

Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her

2006-12-14T18:26:00.000-05:00

I get a kick out of webpages that try to secondguess my interest or intentions. Gmail's little "sponsored side links" usually amuse; I remember several email series with Bryan, long before we were dating, that invited me to "Come! Wake up with the SUN!" (solar-powered alarm clocks) while advising, less than surreptitiously, "Are you in love with your best friend? STOP!" (He's Just Not That Into You, later foisted on me by a family member who shall remain nameless. Mom.) An email from Katie M. about meeting for brunch on our trip to Connecticut in January warns me: "Prepare to be shocked." To help deal, it offers a great deal on an "Emotional Toolkit."

Amazon's equally charming, although this list of recommended features, handpicked especially for me based on my recent purchases, has me guessing:

Brother PT1500 label maker (oh, totally!)
Toastmaster 1770 (hand mixer -- need)
Invest Your Life in Things that Matter
The Wretched of the Earth, by Fanon (own it -- he's a post-Marxist polysci/critical theorist)
and....

....

Histories of the Hanged. Lest you wonder too much of my taste, it's apparently a tale of corruption in the Kenyan justice system. Still, the title kind of gives one the heebie jeebies, no?

2006-12-10T01:42:00.000-05:00

My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. - C.S. Lewis

Start with the first source.
The primary. The true.
I set my lines in water and expect
them to hold fast,
hold fast, and wonder
how long such meridiens can last.

Tonight there was a good unquiet, the kind of restlessness in which, sometimes, I hear things. Lately, what I hear are prayers -- the other ones people must have had (and must still be -ing) prayed over me. That's a poor way of describing it, but it is two A. and M. I will let my own inconsistency slide, as usual.

I wish I could say that feeling like praying meant that I've actually been carrying it through, but sometimes just the "feeling like" of it suffices. I let it make me think I've done my share.

The night comes on, doesn't it?

Well, here is a prayer. It's an old one, but I still mean it. A lot. When I was little, I used to calm myself by imagining that God had an actual hand that, His being God, was just big enough for a five-year-old me to crawl into. I was a literal, if imaginative, child, and songs about "the palm of His hand" suited my need for dark. For Quiet. For a place to become and to be safe in the dark. I can't pretend that that same image works for me anymore, but all the same...In this particular moment, I fall asleep gladly in the unknown, one step closer to the rest of this small life, and thank you for being the God of its Becoming, the God who Became, and the Spirit who beckons.

In spite of all of my unholy racket, You are still the deep and the abiding.

A Few of My Favorite Things

2006-12-06T21:13:00.000-05:00

One very nice thing about finals at Christmas is that, when tired of studying, one can always gift shop online and feel good about procrastinating. Under this logic, it's taken but a few days for ebay.com, etsy.com, and I to become fast friends.

Perhaps this explains how I know that it takes a mere 3 hours and 27 seconds to be perilously, fatally, and hopelessly outbid for Star Trek: The Next Generation, Complete Season One.

Grrrrrrrr.

What's Klingon for "Back off!!!"?

Overheard at My House: Finals Week Boiled Down to the Essentials

2006-12-04T18:14:00.000-05:00

"The nice thing about going to the gym is that it gives my pajamas a chance to breathe."

- Rebecca, Fellow Legal Beagle and Roomie No. 4

Stop the Presses!

2006-12-01T12:15:00.001-05:00

Sorry to bother, but this is tres cool. First up for me: Bleak House by Dickens. Been wanting to get my grubby little paws on this sucker ever since Victoria's tour of legal London last January.

Sleepless in .... Boston?

2006-12-01T10:07:00.000-05:00

Will someone please explain to me why it is sixty degrees and raining in Boston?! How is one to get a Christmas tree in this type of crazy weather? How is one to dance with abandon to the sweet, sweet sounds of Lionel Richie's "Little Drummer Boy"? (Answer: same as always. Take it slow, round out those hips, keep it real cool, sister.) How is one to bake cookies and play Scrabble whilst sipping hot mulled cider?

Ah, New England. Ye never cease to amaze and befuddle. In any case, a very merry Friday to all!

Snap.

2006-11-29T11:19:00.000-05:00

Reverse Sponsor-A-Child.

From the website: "We find an appropriate sponsor family from the other side of the disparity divide, either in North America or abroad. We work with nonprofit organizations to find sponsors who know firsthand how affluence in one place can fuel poverty in another."

More on this later. My interest is piqued. I can't tell if this would be just what some kids need (on both sides of the class divide -- prejudice and class chips cut both ways) or the kind of thing I've heard BC Dean Brinton Lykes disparage as "going to see the poor in their natural habitat." Either way, the discomfort is almost palpable.

In the meantime.

2006-11-28T19:42:00.000-05:00

I don't do so well with things that have turned sour, gone south, nosedived, spun out of control, taken turns for the proverbial Worse. I should clarify: I don't do so well in the precise moment at which things turn. I get shaky. I immediately have to fight the urge to cry or be vindicated. I stop talking, which is equal parts blessing and harbinger of worse woes to those who know me best. (One does not want to argue with the silent me.)

In the long run, I fare much better. So what if my plants died because they got too much sun in the place to which I moved them? So what if my car fails emissions tomorrow? So what if I don't pull the grades I'd like to this semester? So what if my laundry is scattered like tiny little cotton corpses across my room, clean though it may be? I won't remember it next month, let alone next year, unless it's to laugh at the ridiculous things that happen to me (my CAR GOT EGGED!! If you have seen my car, you know that that actually might improve it a little bit. Who eggs a rust bucket?).

Somewhere along the way, I usually manage to get a grip on reality and hold onto what's important. What I've been learning lately is that I desperately need to be a bit more forgiving, a little bit more gracious, a little bit more understanding of these kinds of imperfections in me and others "in the meantime," between what's happening right here, in the Now, and what will be worth remembering Then.

the most wonderful time of the year

2006-11-21T12:56:00.000-05:00

Some days, I can't imagine a world without eggnog.

Age with grace.

2006-11-16T13:56:00.000-05:00

I'd forgotten that my school notebook came with us to NYC for the Darfur Rally a few months ago. To my delight and surprise, my notes from Secured Transactions gave way to these "storytime" gems from one of the the six-hour bus rides we took that day:

"If C files UCC-3 prior to 4 months, the priority date is the date of filing UCC-1. If C files UCC-3 after 4 months, there are two priority dates: the initial FS's filing date (UCC-1) governs collateral D had or acquired up to that 4-month date; the UCC-3 filing date governs all collateral acquired after the 4 months."

(turning page)

"One big snot went perilously into Jesus' presence."

November

2006-11-11T15:50:00.000-05:00

Nosebleeds at Celtics games with friends new and old
May-day weather in my birth month
My mother and her friends out gallivanting in my city
My brother, modeling tonight...!
Making one good car out of two bad ones for my sister, soon to arrive back in the U.S.
Borat, at long last
Afghani food for dinner
the INA coming into focus slowly as studies progress
the reemergence of Stephanie Ayer, and

looking forward to December.

(With regard to The Swell Season, the management recommends "falling slowly," both as a means of walking down stairs, into hope, loving one's Irish-mutt heritage, and finding a cushioned veranda upon which to sink with books in hand anticipating moonrise. We've still got time.)

...

2006-10-29T04:23:00.000-05:00

Please pray for my good friend Kim, who unexpectedly lost her best friend last night. Amanda was sweet, consistent in her friendship, and contagiously upbeat. I know she was a friend who loved Kim well.

I'm too shocked to trust myself with other words.

what aroma finer than prayer

2006-10-25T15:03:00.000-05:00

When I think
of the words that rush, unformed, inside this head;

when I hold
too tightly, a child at the Fair, to thoughts
precarious as red balloons edging upwards toward an October sky;

when the air pops and sizzles,
the Sturm und Drang of a thousand schoolchildren making room for dreams
of the air,
of the flight of each tiny helicopter,
of the shape of the hands I love,
of a doorstep beckoning,
of a coming home--

There is no question.
I am unfinished, in Love.

Note to Self

2006-09-01T08:42:00.000-05:00

She asked him, "How is it possible that you will show yourself to those who love you, but not to the whole world?"

He answered. "If you intend to love me, you will keep my words; and the light cast by your life, if any at all, will not help but reflect mine."

"I will say it again. The search for justice met by mercy, a desire to know Truth tempered with wisdom, insatiable love of all life and grace, above all the peace to know these things are not impossible--when these define you, I have made a home in you."

"I would pay at least $3 to hang out with you."*

2006-08-25T16:23:00.000-05:00

I have the strange feeling that my readership is about to spike directly in proportion to the number of law students I know who are starting classes this week. (To those who wish to supplement Mergers and Acquisitions with "What Jessica Learned on Her Summer Vacation": call me! I'm queen of the $3 date!) The moving season is such that I find myself leaving to-do lists on other people's voicemails and balancing out my quiet times and yoga sessions with major caffeine-induced freak-outs. Arm-flailing, box cutters, and racing hearts abound, and the time I have for writing I am attempting to put towards more lasting endeavors.

For my friends given to prayer, please keep Bryan in mind as he moves to Boston sometime within the next few weeks. There have been several delays already, and the "not knowing" business has been frustrating. I would also appreciate prayer: I'll be looking for work, taking classes, and interning at an asylum/refugee legal clinic while attempting to begin preparations for the bar exam next July. Email me if you'd rather pray for specifics.

In the meantime, bring on the apple crisp and fall wedding season!

*Bryan, via Google Chat. To his credit, this line is grossly taken out of context.

Where we are.

2006-08-18T21:49:00.000-05:00

"As long as there is hunger, poverty and treatable disease in the world, there is work for us to do. As long as nations fight, and [humans] hate, and corruption stalks the corridors of power; as long as there is unemployment and homelessness, depression and despair, our task is not yet done, [sic] and we hear, if we listen carefully enough, the voice of God asking us, as he asked the first humans, 'Where are you?'"

-Jonathan Sacks

Where am I?

I am in the process of becoming available. I am fighting myself. I am fighting with God. I am in line at the grocery store wishing I looked like that. I am watching bad TV. I am making faces with my cousin in the mirror. I am gasping for breath. I am dying for your love. I am in awe. I am non-plussed. I am making dinner and drinking wine and filling my gas tank and growing my hair and staring too long and working for nothing and stuck, stuck, stuck in all of the busyness that Not Caring engenders -- no, requires. I am making excuses. I am overcome. I am grieving for us all. I am not writing enough. I am writing too much. I am going back to school. I am buying a kite. I am dreaming big. I am moving out. I am refusing to listen to the Lie that says I need what I don't, that I want what I can't, that I can't do as I must. I am giving in to temptation. I am sleeping in. I am packing up. I am shipping out. I am looking up at the clouds. I am going to the beach. I am making them laugh. I am willing to forget. I am feeding the selfish beast inside. I am dancing. I am playing with children. I am loving the Ditty Bops and staying up too late and becoming acquainted with the good life of books, tea, and friendship. I am missing my family. I am endlessly traveling someplace. I am learning to love football and tacos and bowling and backpacks filled with tin pans and extra pairs of socks.

I am waiting to become more than this.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

2006-08-08T21:03:00.000-05:00

by Jessica Curtis

Indulged my grandmother by bringing over KFC (we're classy like that)for the introductory meeting between Bryan, my grandparents, and...dum dum dum....my dad, who said, and I quote, "Bryan can stay."

Made blueberry and banana pancakes, drank questionable coffee, and had devotions on the back patio with Bryan on a lazy Friday morning we didn't expect to spend together.

Fashioned a 50-foot slip 'n slide out of plastic sheeting, dish soap, and spit. Simultaneously turned the Schnittjers' backyard into an environmentally protected marsh.

Saw my first hummingbird! Panned M. Night Shymalan's _Lady in the Water_. Studied for, took, and have no idea how I fared on the MPRE.

Introduced Bryan's parents to the seedy side of Ben Folds Five. Told myself for the millionth time that I must find a way to buy a new piano for my Boston apartment.

Fell in love with Bryan's family again. It's actually rather impossible not to: who wouldn't fall in love with a woman juuust over 60 who feels no compunction about belly-flopping down a slip 'n slide on a weeknight? Who wouldn't cherish the sight of her husband floating gently down the Delaware in a yellow tube, wearing pants for a bathing suit and carrying a blue umbrella to keep out of the sun? Cemented my role as Bryan's other escort for Becca's wedding. So far, his grandmother is still his best girl. Cruised down the boardwalk with the Schnittjer clan eating fair food. Rode a Ferris wheel at sunset on the Jersey shore and told jellyfish who was boss. Took silly pictures and told stories about the good old days.

Broke out my very first bikini. Hey, I know.

Hung out with four of the East Coast's rising stars amongst the eleven- and twelve-year-old set, making costume jewelry and discussing the respective merits of Hillary Duff and Raven Simone while reading Tiger Beat.

Lost my Yves Saint Laurent sunglasses in the Delaware River. Sorry, Jackie!

Got some really good news. Felt completely at home. Returned, ready for action.

"Eez zat a catch phrase or epilepsee?"

2006-08-07T20:15:00.000-05:00

Everything about this picture makes me happy. This coming week, we celebrate the one-year anniversary of our (first) visit to Rwanda and the equally momentous anniversary of our transatlantic love affair. This is Bryan's picture, of course. I am finally caving into the pressures of the modern world and considering buying a digital camera, but for now I'm perfectly content to steal his photos as quickly as he can say "Shake 'n bake, baby!"

Now may you go

2006-07-28T19:13:00.000-05:00

Haze gives way to driving rains and peals of thunder -- God laughing, some have said, no doubt at the limp way in which this body of mine flops and complains in the humidity with all the crotchety antics of an octogenarian. And yet these days feel like blessings, mostly because that is exactly what they are. Tests and expectations are set aside for the next few days as I travel a bit south of here, following a boy. I find myself trapped between wanting August to continue interminably and wishing September to be well on its way. See you in a week.

"Life is short, and we do not have too much time to gladden the hearts of those who travel the way with us:
So be swift to love, and make haste to be kind, and may the Divine Mystery, Who is beyond our ability to know but Who made us, and Who loves us, and Who travels with us, bless us and keep us in peace. Amen."

Rhymes with "knicker."

2006-07-26T15:25:00.000-05:00

Guess who is back in town and, with any luck, coming soon to an Eastern seaboard near yours truly. Permanently.

This we pray.

Day by day.

By day.

And every day.

By day.

Two Do.

2006-07-23T22:01:00.000-05:00

I stumbled across this site today. A compulsive list-maker, I found it good to see how many others enjoy encapsulating life's less pleasant chores -- taxes? and credit cards? and diskettes? and banks? and a wart, just because life wasn't good enough with all of them there taxes? -- into neat, manageable, polite tales of responsibility and procrastination. This one caught my eye for one reason: I've always marveled at those who do not cross, and double-cross, and then neatly scribble out the things they've managed to achieve on one of these babies. What's the good of keeping a list if one doesn't have the satisfaction of erasing errands into oblivion?

In the end, however, I prefer to keep other lists -- the kinds one doesn't have to, want to, or prefer to erase:

Prayers answered.
Sounds coming from the neighbor's house.
Summer loves.
How many days until.
Books to read.
Aid organizations.
Craft ideas.
Names.
Why I love him.
Letters to write.
Five-year goals.
School supplies.
What I don't understand.
Essay ideas.
Conversations to have.
Questions to ask.
Clothes to modify.
Christmas gifts.
Classes to take.

And, of course, Wart.

Let your warm hands break right through

2006-07-20T22:13:00.000-05:00

Tonight, my brother and I saw this movie:

so should you.

Forgetting, for a moment, that I'm a sucker for space travel and Salvation Army wardrobes (Lois got that entire outfit for no more than $3.75, I guarantee that), what I loved most about Superman was the company. And here's where I run into a bit of trouble, because people used to tell me that I only talked about my brother, that they never knew I had a sister, and I feel guilty because that's probably true. Both are equally amazing, equally lovely people; it's just that, for the longest time, Patrick was my fellow rabble-rouser, and Jen was the rabble that got roused. Here's one example: Jenny made the mistake of falling asleep early one evening, and Pat and I proceeded to cover her entire body in a bottle of Elmer's glue. We spoke of it as if it were the perfect crime: she didn't wake up, and we had the strange and sickly satisfaction that comes with peeling things off of people. Years later, she calmly informed us that she had been awake the entire time but hadn't moved--she had just been too timid to object. (Oh, but she has the last laugh: this weekend, Pat and I are going to a classical concert. Jen is camping in her backyard. Go figure.)

I could tell you the million little things I loved about this movie, but the truth is that I'm writing this here for one reason, and one reason only. I know that, when she finally crawls out of the jungle, Jen will be able to picture the following scene more vividly than I can paint it: two gangly kids sit near the back of the theater a little bit apart from everyone else, still smitten with the idea of a world where superheroes save days. One still has an affinity for Nice Guys; whether they finish last or first, she won't care so long as they are on time. The other used to actually wear a jerry curl. Both still find it amusing that Superman flies the way the girl plays video games, jerking the controller to change direction, and that screenwriters create such awful dialogue. "I'd forgotten how warm you are"?! Like that's really the first thing you'd say to the Man of Steel. I think she'll agree with me when I say that I've missed those crazy kids. It's nice to see them back finally and true to form.

I should have been in bed an hour ago. Instead I'm sitting here, writing an open letter on the Internt to my sister in South America, listening to Imogen Heap and Snow Patrol courtesy of my brother. (I'm so behind!) I feel a little bit as though my mother's going to come in this room any minute and tell us all to turn the lights off, that it's time for bed. I get the feeling that if I go to sleep right. now. I will wake up in my own past, in my old house, with a bottle of glue in one hand and a feather in the other, just to see if she was lying about that being awake business.

Good night, kids.

for my brother, who knows how to say things

Lift this wing.
Sweet child, lift this wing.
I've gotta know right now,
love--you gonna lift this wing?

Is this the right place for the right time?
You got your marching orders, your shoes shined?
Come on, sweet devil, come on now!
Come on, lift this wing.

Two long years and seven days
spent living hard and fast, loose
cats on dying knees now with their heads
bent low -- they wanna know,
love -- they wanna know, you gonna lift this wing?

Bah, there's no harm in open windows
when you've got eyes to see; and Me,
Well, I've been walking to you
for miles now and singing,

thinking life is grand when you've been
drinking good times down
with blondes and browns --when God Himself
could call from Heaven and it wouldn't knock you --

down past Orleans and across the sea, yeah,
I've been thinking myself straight into the arms of
the right place and the right time
for you to come on, climb on
down the mountain of your life and

Lift this wing.

When it's all said and done,

2006-07-16T22:39:00.000-05:00

I'm only beginning to realize how much I'm going to miss my church home here in Connecticut. Having grown up in church, I know full well that not all churches are created equal: one can spend agonizing weeks and months being greeted by too-bright smiles and welcome packets and (insincere?) incessant requests for your "information" before stumbling across a church that even remotely resembles home. I've been so blessed.

I'm so grateful for the give-and-take of my relationships here, for the diversity of our home crowd, for the way new people feel something different (it's love, and yeah, we know that's so rare to find these days). Knowing I'm leaving soon, again and possibly for good, makes me uber-grateful for nights full of ice cream sandwiches and iced coffee, hiking partners and curbside dwellers asking late-night kinds of questions, mutually honest wrangling with Ourselves in the Universe, and moments marked by laughter. I've got it good with these guys and gals. Here's to hoping for a mass exodus of these folks a wee bit north and a wee bit east, where life is good and the chowda is hot.

Double on that Negative

2006-06-29T20:36:00.000-05:00

It should not have been a perfect day.

You were gone, all of you,
the sun was too high, and
the new basil stubbornly insisted on refusing to leaf in time for the evening's meal.

Conjunctions muddied every sentence with
their same-old, same-old-boring routine.
Nothing clicked or sprang or popped, buzzed or bubbled;
nothing sparked. Nothing rang.

No bells, no whistles. No catcalls, no heady perfumes.
No windfalls and no beginner's luck, no accolades,
no recognition, no requests for more, none of the

shim-sham of endless epiphanies I've begun, of late,
to equate with summer -- and yet,
( ).

Respite

2006-06-22T23:07:00.000-05:00

What the girl wanted was to sit still for an hour where the dark shone sweetly
in its own Bright, where things lay still and straight
beneath a certain weight
somehow put behind them in the New of day.

She wanted a good friend and a low song,
sweet grass and a warm Earth,
eyes closing as the stars above shot past
in ineffable, heavenly rhythm,
applauding always the Great, the Very Good.

Another Teaser.

2006-06-12T21:36:00.000-05:00

Hey, just because it's "Personal Admin Week 2006" here at Joplinista doesn't mean we can't hearken back to Rome circa, oh, three weeks ago, and admit that it is certainly on the docket to capture, forever, in white space. In the meantime, a simple quiz for those who miss school already:

Q: You're tired. You're hot. You're hungry, your feet are swelling like you're about to birth an elephant, your skirt just flew up over your head as you walked over a subway vent, and you know what? You're a wee bit grumpy. Now look at the giant sausage. What's it saying to you?

A.) Lick it!
B.) Typical.
C.) "Your estimated monthly payments, based on the information you provided, will be $1,125.57. To make these payments, you will need to earn a minimum annual salary of $146,940."
D.) All of the above, and then some.

The Prophetic.

2006-06-04T23:50:00.000-05:00

"Sing, O barren one, who did not bear;
break forth into singing and cry aloud,
you who have not been in labor!
For the children of the desolate one will be more
than the children of her who is married," says the Lord.

"Enlarge the place of your tent,
and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out;
do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes.
For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left,
and your offspring will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities.

"O afflicted one, storm-tossed and not comforted,
behold, I will set your stones in antimony,
and lay your foundations with sapphires.
I will make your pinnacles of agate,
our gates of carbuncles,
and all your wall of precious stones.
All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children.

"In righteousness you shall be established;
you shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear;
and from terror, for it shall not come near you...

Behold."*

Someone gave me this passage recently, and its meaning for the hurt places in my life -- well. That is for you and me to discuss another time, in another place, with the snow falling down gently in the White Mountains and a cup of cocoa steaming in both of our hands.

I have been comforted these past days in places I did not know needed soothing, and I want to thank God for that. I have been encouraged, when I thought to be the encouragement, and again I thank Him. And above all, I've been humbled once again by the grace He gives and the warmth of a people who have seen His true face, which I will always believe -- you cannot convince me otherwise -- resides somewhere in all the broken pieces of our world.

Do not hold back.

*Taken from Isaiah 54.

Crash!

2006-05-18T18:39:00.000-05:00

Hard drive bit the bullet STOP Change of plans STOP Milan Venice Rome Naples Pompeii Capri Amalfi Rome Vatican City STOP Feverishly trying to leave things in good hands gets difficult without a computer STOP But still HALF-STOP

"It was too nice a day to do anything but dig in."

Insert Inspirational Quote Here.

2006-05-15T09:37:00.000-05:00

It's been a marathon of goodbyes, this last week has. I can be much given to the sentimental, and I spent the last 14 days or so thinking, "This is my last walk in Trafalgar" (except I never go to Trafalgar), or "This is the last time I'll go grocery shopping in Hampstead," or "This is the last time I'll walk home past midnight and miss the H2." What is it about the mundane that makes me a weeping sap of a girl? No idea.

Of course, what struck me most about my life in London were the people I met. I have a feeling Derek will do better justice to the last night our program met than I will, but suffice it to say the evening was hilarious, decadent (I had mussels, escargot, shrimp, lobster, scallops, sea bass, whitebait, frites, rock crab, and two really amazing mojitos), and -- on occasion -- utterly American. I left earliest to catch the Tube and understood the party raged beyond everyone's proper bedtime. The next day, I said farewell to Daniel and Sophie (cue the shout-out to Sophie!) of A19 fame and hurried home for a late but delicious dinner with Caroline, Darius, and Natalya, aged thirty-something, 8, and 6, respectively.

The next morning found me in Brussels, unearthing the third key to Bryan's oft-attacked apartment and taking a much needed rest. He, being pretty much the kind of guy you'd really want to date were I not already doing so, had left a series of food-and-drink-related comparisons expostulating on the merits of our relationship. Lentils, grapefruit, and the largest bottle of tequila I've ever seen starred in this dramatic retelling of all things Us, as did a roll of toilet paper. Choked with emotion, I extended my ticket home to May 27, rounded up a ride back from JFK from Aimee, and promptly forgot to make the Rod Stewart mix that was to accompany our drive in Ireland. That evening, we flew out of Charleroi for Shannon, Ireland, unintentionally accompanied by his HR manager who made the timely announcement that he'd been granted an extra week of vacation for the year. After another night near Killorglin spent shivering in the car, we climbed Carrantouhill, Ireland's tallest mountain. It was great fun, albeit exhausting, and seven hours later we had our first mishap as I slid down--well, a bump, really--for no good reason of all and into a pile of droppings kindly left by the sheep that mocked our human laboring over the rocks they climbed so easily. We set up camp that night near Killarney and tucked in just before the rain began to fall, spent a leisurely day in one of the many national parks we'd driven through on our previous trip, finding fabulous places to eat along the way. Chinese food in Ireland, you say? Aye, and 'twas delish! Other highlights: waking up while floating on an airmat, not showering, getting all consumer-y in Killarney, my sympathetic boyfriend on someone else's girlfriend issues: "Oh, did she love to shop?", bluebells, allergies amock, the desolate quiet of higher places.

In a moment, I'll go throw in the millionth load of laundry we have from the weekend, set up for dinner (stuffed tomatoes with sausage, sundried tomato and bacon risotto, garlic bread, and absolutely nothing healthy), and try to screw my head on straight. Between planning an impromptu vacation next week (the lot is tied between Cairo, Italy, and Athens) and looking on to the future months, I'd say the summer is shaping up to be its own kind of wonderful.

Highlights Reel

2006-04-24T12:43:00.000-05:00

Sorry, no pictures of my own (well, of Darcy's) yet. Will update soon.

Last two weeks:

Bolton Priory
Lambing season in the English countryside
Three Sisters
Easter morning in the gardens below Edinburgh Castle
Paying visits to Sir William Wallace
"C-crumbs!"
Double beds
Scottish bed and breakfasts
Circular walks, Loch Tay
Pizza Hut. Yes, Pizza Hut.
"Mostly Ballads"
Grandpa's stories: "...and that was the time I almost died in Dublin."
Legacy
Photographing the Queen's Birthday Celebration
Bobbies with car fetishes
The Victoria & Albert
BBQ!!
First nap on the lawn in the back paddock
The Big Woods
Getting picked up by lawyers minutes before meeting This Kid on the Hampstead platform
Learning that Elias Canetti lived, begrudgingly, in Hampstead
Portobello on a warm spring day
The first dress of the spring
Snoring myself awake (allergies? overtiredness? the saga continues)
Papers and lunches made free of charge (my own cabana boy)
This is Scotland!
Searching for Nessie
Wrong turns in Glasgow
Postcards from home.

The only Eagles song I'll ever sing.

2006-04-12T14:19:00.000-05:00

There are stars in the southern sky

southward as you go
There is moonlight and moss in the trees
Down the Seven Bridges Road
Sometimes there's a part of me
Has to turn from here and go
Running like a child from these warm stars
Down the Seven Bridges Road
There are stars in the Southern sky
And if ever you decide you should go
There is a taste of time-sweetened honey
down the Seven Bridges Road

(Which Road, by the way, I totally fell down five minutes after this picture was taken.)

Nanny McPhee?

2006-04-12T10:17:00.000-05:00

If I learned one thing about myself from my years as a camp counselor -- and trust me, I learned many, many things -- it's that the stereotypical behavior for which I have the least affinity is that of the spoiled girl-child, of any age. I learned pretty early that the best summers were those in which strong boundaries were set early on, and so my kids and I would come up with "Group Rules" that we all then enforced. I always made sure it included the usual suspects, but the kids would be so proud of themselves for coming up with these guidelines all by themselves that I usually never had to enforce them. The exception, of course, was whining and bossiness. Both the boys and girls enforced the first one, but every case of bossiness I dealt with involved girls. What that's all about, I don't know, but I would NOT stand for it. I got pretty good at developing crafty ways of handling these situations, though, but I'll save those secrets for another day.

This aversion to bossy young girls stems from issues I'm still working through from fourth grade, in which R. Lawson demanded that SHE always get to marry Heath in our recess version of "Big Valley" because she was the oldest and, obviously, thus the most ready for marriage. I had a suspicion that this was all poppycock, that the real reason had to do with Heath's evolution from "angry illegitimate son" into the quintessential silent type, but whatever. She was bigger than me. Somehow her impending marriage to Heath, a role that was always played either by my friend Chip or my neighbor Natacia, excused her from those obvious frontier duties the rest of us kept busy with until the whistle blew again, such as brushing the "floor" of our California mansion with "sagebrush," foraging for nuts and berries for the big meal, and looking out for Injuns and bandits on the Newington skyline. Meanwhile, R. held court underneath a giant bush and served fake tea in acorns for her most trusty female companions, which she'd ordered the rest of us (namely me) to collect. To this day I don't look at acorns with anything but anguish.

The kids I live with here are really cute, but the youngest shows signs of developing the R-factor. Today, she whined all morning, throwing tantrums and fake-crying because her older brother wouldn't share more than half of his candy, which he had generously given her after she ate all of hers, and cried on and on about how he didn't listen to her, didn't follow her instructions, etc. I think you'll agree with me here when I say that I really put my issues to rest when I heard her, thinking no one was upstairs, go into her brother's room and steal the candy. As soon as she'd thrown it into her room, she cheered up and gaily ran downstairs as if all were well to tell him she'd forgiven him. And I, who am free to use the mirror in her room to make certain I match, marched right into her bedroom, picked up the stolen candy, and stole it back. placing it in her brother's room out of her reach. The policing instinct born of many years of watching kids be, well, kids, has not left my system. Apparently.

I can't tell if I'm more amused or horrified. No, wait: amused. I'm laughing as I write this a little too maniacally for someone spending the whole day in a library.

In a word: April.

2006-04-08T06:47:00.000-05:00

Soul singing and impromptu musicals in London streets prompt the posts that Maura hates.
Poulet piquant? Oui, oui.
Handing out numbers and daisy chains with equal proportion, here in London there is no lonely wandering.
I climb the countryside and fall as often as not, but no matter: his hand seeks the small of my back regardless.

Spring's here.
Sweet grass and dark chocolate, cucumbers and fresh avocado and the last good peppers roasting, cooler nights for bogging down with friends in the corners of cafe booths.
The sweet thrill of the market throng, a ring of smoke ahead, cobbed corn and jacket potatoes, flamenco lessons in the big City.
Kite-flying and watermelon squash, peanut butter and honey breakfasts, bees bumbling beyond bedroom doors.
The ping of rain on my window, the view from this library, the good ache in my heart when I think that my home, now, lies in so many places, and all of those places have their own passports.

These times make me laugh. Something's coming, something good. I dare not tell it to sit still or to stop dreaming or to fold its hands.

ITEM: Daft Punk Forgets That Taxes Are Due in Astonishing Display of Complete Lack of Fiscal Fealty to Her Dearly Beloved US of A.

2006-04-05T12:36:00.000-05:00

You know, there's just something about the phrase "extension" that makes the word "tax" a lot more palatable, especially when one forgets about it entirely.

I think I'm going to go kick up my heels in Islington, buy some fresh fruits, and stop at my favorite veggie Thai restaurant for dinner. It's amazing what those people can do with Soya and a little bit of gumption. Everything's in bloom in Great Britain. Wish you were here. Really.

Love,

Me

Such a tease.

2006-03-31T02:12:00.000-05:00

He wrote a song once about the good Love and the good Wine, and then
He sang it with so great a sound it covered the entire globe.
"Jacob have I loved," and Esau, too;
His voice lending the weight of heaven to the earthen glory, sometimes shame,
to which these two things will sometime lead.

I want to document, mark down, keep Them on file,
prepare for next arrivals (if such things can be known).
I make my inner house into a home so that,
when They arrive,
There are the tiniest of tokens already bearing witness,
Nods to past visits called up to form the Bridge from
What's happened Before to what's happening, now, Between.

As for Love, well -
I want to give it my favorite seat,
Make it comfortable in my red slippers,
Pull the corners of the blanket down around its shoulders
when it gets cold.

in Him you also
are being built together
into a dwelling place

Halloo!

2006-01-17T10:10:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm here! (In London, that is.) I don't have the time nor the internet connection to wax rhapsodic about anything other than to say that, so far, I love my placement, the Program in general, the classes, the city, and the proximity to Bryan (albeit not necessarily all in that order). There should be a limit as to how many blogging hiati one can go on--I think this is my third--but this one, at least, has little do with me. So long as I can't access Blogger from my home, no updates will ensue. I won't complain. Life is quite full right now, and it's much easier to escape the homing device that seems to have settled right behind my LCD screen when it doesn't work correctly.

Shall I email you instead and call it even? I'll certainly try. I don't miss the States quite yet (I do miss the dollar being worth what it's worth!), but I do miss the people. A bientot!

P.S. Krish, happy birthday! See you soon!

In chaos, Peace. In brokenness, Love. In finals season, everyone pulls an Enson Crusher.

2005-12-08T09:03:00.000-05:00

Okay, kids, here's the scoop: it's finals week, which means this little girl* will be out of commission till next Friday at 6 p.m. There will be much joy and merry-making; there may also be a visit to Narnia (stay alert, ye who care about these things) for cathartic imagining of wondrous things and the triumph of good over evil. Till then, though, I'll be traveling incognito as a deranged local who washes infrequently and walks around muttering "226 230 241 28 30 5 10 2 3 and most of all, 234." I only wish those were winning lottery numbers.

Anyway, I am breaking this fast of silence for one reason: engaged is the new black. Congratulations, Joe and Mary! Congratulations, Brock and Christina! Congratulations, Josh and Donna!**

See you kids at the end of next week!

*We're interpreting that broadly. Expansively, if you will. Especially after this last week's diet and lack of exercise (as in, less than usual. As in, I only get up from my chair five times a day as opposed to the usual twenty-five.).

**Points for having an engagement story involving things catching fire -- unintentionally.

Home is where the heart is.

2005-11-28T20:18:00.000-05:00

- tea fields, Rwanda, 8/13/05. Mwirirwe.

And when the day came and there

were none left to speak the dawn open,

to cast the windows wide at market,

start the razors in the saloons;

none to swat the dogs who followed too closely or

send the children for more water;

no man to lay the bricks against their wooden frames,

no young ladies to mix the clay and water, forming mud --

I thought to this moment, now,

in which the red hills would defy their stained and blood-soaked soil,

would once again allow the wind to rise amidst an ocean of tea

and, in so doing, send a bright

Good morning, good morning,

to all those found, still walking, on the Way.

Mature Audiences Only

2005-11-22T18:52:00.000-05:00

Someone got Almost Twelve a tad bit earlier than I did*...

*If you're quite nice and I know you very well and you promise me oodles and oodles of french fries or bacon, I just may let you in on this little Curtis family joke. Better throw in some ice cream there, too, Skipper!

The History of the Joint Venture: Or, How to Land the Guy/Girl of Your Dreams -- Now with Real Miming Action!

2005-11-20T00:25:00.000-05:00

First, we remained calm.

Second, we played it cool.

Third, we staged a cage fight.

Fourth, we figured it out. "Hey!" We said. "You're neat-o!" Because that is what Christians say when they get the strange, sudden desire to spend the rest of their days sharing bacon with strangers: neat-O!

Fifth, we bid our single days farewell.

Sixth, we apologized to our friends for getting all "Whoa, let's hold the camera out so that it looks like someone else took the picture!" on them. (Well, one of us did. The other one has clearly found some chocolate on her upper lip and is really going for it.)

Seventh, we issued a warning: cheesiness, full steam ahead!

Je t'aime, mon petit pomme de terre. Long may you live to run after the sausage.

Love,
GB

( ! )

Sins of the Fathers

2005-11-18T09:23:00.000-05:00

There's a saying oft repeated in the Old Testament, which I used to misread as something meted out as judgment: "The sin of the fathers shall be visited upon their children unto the third and fourth generation." How profoundly unfair, I would think.

I begin to see that this was more of a declaration of reality than a promise of divine retribution. What we do in our lives -- the simple acts that define us -- bear fruit for the future. It bore repeating because humankind, en masse, prefers to believe in temporality. (This is a topic for another day, but this also goes to the problem I have with utilitarianism's attempt to make itself into a moral argument: it rarely, if ever, removes itself from first-generation concerns, often serving as a means of placating a public that has little, if any, idea of how it should make decisions.)

How often we ignore this very simple doctrine of consequences! War is ripening in East Africa: deaths have occurred in protests about constitutional changes and flawed elections in the relatively peaceful states of Kenya, Ethiopia, and Tanzania. Uganda's President Musuveni, co-architect and supporter (some would argue) of the rise of Hutu Power, stifles protest in his own streets as he faces the most serious political challenges of his life. Sudan and Congo are hotbeds of death and unrest: 2.3 million are currently displaced in the DRC after civil unrest started by Rwanda's Kagame and Uganda's Musuveni invaded in 1998. Hundreds of thousands are dead. The good work being done in Rwanda will be unraveled, should war break out; Burundi will follow Rwanda's lead. This will, I'm convinced, be the unlabeled World War III: unlabeled because the "sin of the fathers" that so plagues Africa still haunts us today. The evil of colonialism, peculiarly unmentioned in the article above (that's sarcasm), persists in our own stubborn insistence that Africa's problems are its own: what do we care, or why should we care, if warring tribes decide to kill each other? Their deaths go uncounted; they are faceless, nameless hordes with unpronounceable names and unmanageable problemes. Let them solve it themselves, indeed. What will be their final solution, I wonder?

The article implies that Africa's problems are the result of democracies emerging out of dictatorships in lands plagued by poverty. That is only half true, and the half that is false contains the cause. To paraphrase a favorite author of mine, there is something one must factor in before one can figure it out: three generations ago, or perhaps four, the western world came calling. It killed Africa's best and brightest with abandon, enslaving entire peoples under the guise of the "holy calling" of the Hamitic myth; if it is plagued by social ills stemming from bad leadership, we cannot fail to acknowledge the dehumanizing aspect of colonial leadership and its deliberate restructuring of traditional systems of empowerment. When the colonial powers shrugged off their African burden, they washed their hands clean and missed the point entirely: what happened then spurs what happens now. And for our generation to ignore Africa in this moment is to repeat our ignoble history of selective inattention.

This is more than a rant. This is a shame-on-me for not doing more than this, for not pushing forward as strenuously as I could for change. I suppose, then, it's also a challenge: we must find ways to get involved. The Africans say they are hoping that no one turns to war; that seems so impossible right now that I can't imagine that hope being anything but futile.

Stay tuned. Read the article. Start thinking.

My Humps

2005-11-17T22:07:00.000-05:00

34 days until I say goodbye to Boston
15 hours until I say hello to lasagna
30 days till finals are over
21 days till finals begin
11 hours till a quarter-century
7 days till my own bed
8 days till brunch with the Big Three: Karly, Aimee, and Jana
8 days and one afternoon till my brother and I spend some QT together
36 days until this one hops another plane
60 days till our second go-round at joint European adventuring
2 days till post-church Coffee Date Night with Irene, Dorothy, et al
8 hours to sleep

The thought of Peter staring Laura down while singing "My Humps"? Timeless.

NOTE TO THOSE WHO LIKE TO KNOW THESE THINGS, AKA BETSY: I'll most likely be out of commission for a bit. Finals Season, Lo, It Hath Returned, and I am Undone.

Still Listening: Bartender

2005-11-08T19:12:00.000-05:00

He wrote a song once about the good love, the good wine.
I want to know how often (and when)
His notes, or any other's, will carry the weight of these two things into my world.

I want to document them, keep them on file;
prepare for their arrival, if these things can be known.
Make my house into a home so that,
When they arrive,
There are the tiniest of tokens bearing witness to past visits,
Memories called up to make a bridge from
What’s happened before to what’s happening between.

As for love, well—
I want to give it my favorite seat,
Make it comfortable in my red slippers,
Pull the corners of the blanket down around its shoulders when it gets cold.

Food for thought.

2005-11-07T22:16:00.000-05:00

It's not every day that one finds similar political souls wandering the halls of evangelical Christianity. While not the most cogently stated or comprehensive argument I've read regarding this administration's actions, it gets to the heart of what's so troublesome about them. Check it out.

Also, if you're a BC Law student, stop into East Wing 400 between 3:30 and 4:30 to hang out with your friendly local Christians. Peter and I went nuts in the grocery store last night-- nuts!! It's amazing how many Oatmeal Creme Pies you can buy for $40.

Kumbaya

2005-11-04T23:46:00.000-05:00

Jessica: Hey, remember how our tire fell off in the mountains on the road to Cyangugu Province?

Bryan: Yep. [Eloquent male response.]

Jessica: I still can't believe how dark it was that night. Remember how Kayijuka would turn his flashlight onto the road every once in awhile, and we'd be surprised to see about five or six people sitting there watching us?

Bryan: Yep.

Jessica: And remember how Sheila kept calling us from Kibogora to find out what was taking us so long, even though Andy had clearly told her we were all right and on our way, and we all thought she was being overly maternal?

Bryan: Yep.

Jessica: And remember how Rachel and Patty and I started throwing rocks into the forest to pass the time, and Kayijuka asked us what we were doing?

Bryan: Nope.

Jessica: "American citizens should exercise caution when traveling through the Nyungwe Forest on the Butare-Cyangugu Road. Travel during the hours of twilight and darkness is not recommended. The Embassy does not recommend camping in the forest at this time. Regionally, one of the many Hutu extremist rebel factions in the Great Lakes region has committed, and continues to threaten, violence against American citizens and interests."

[Silence. And then...]

Bryan: Where did you read that?

Jessica: The State Department.

[Silence again. Even more silence. And then...]

Bryan: I totally took the guitar out and started singing worship songs when that happened, didn't I?

Jessica: Yep.

Captain v. Obvious

2005-11-02T11:27:00.000-05:00

Law school textbooks are ridiculously expensive; in protest of that fact, I refused to pay full price for anything I could find outside of the bookstore. My books would have cost me around $800, had I not been such a heroine for the cause; as it stands, I spent about $250 by purchasing books on Half.com and from 3L friends. Of course these books come in imperfect shape; and while dealing with someone else's underlining, highlighting, and book briefing is not as big of a deal to me as saving $600 dollars, it can make for some entertaining--and sometimes frustrating-- reading. One can learn a lot about a person through what they doodle in their books, the notes they leave to themselves, the Supreme Court justices they deface. Mostly what you learn from paging through these things, though, is that being in law school doesn't make you de facto intelligent. (Well, duh!)

My Evidence textbook is classic. I am its third or fourth owner, which puts some extra degrees of separation between me and the very lovely person who owned it first. It's clearly seen better days: the original owner was a fan of random highlighting, writing down wrong answers in the text, and arguing with the author in truly unhelpful ways, such as the following: "What?" "This doesn't make sense!!!" (Which, true.) My favorite comment, though, was the one I found last night while going back over hearsay. Next to an excerpt from a newspaper article about a pet wolf that had allegedly bitten a small boy, this person wrote the following:

"Wolf = NOT A HUMAN."

over the rainbow

2005-10-28T21:59:00.000-05:00

I have talked with my sister, and -- provided the administratives work out for both of us -- she will be in Peru for two years starting this February. Chances are high that I won't be in the States next semester, either. Take a cousin in London here and a boyfriend in Belgique, and I may as well incorporate according to the laws of France and call myself an MNC. Jen's news about Peru is truly extraordinary: this is a girl who used to cry when we made her order pizza. This is also a girl who sent me Play-do in the mail this week, though, so she's obviously full of suprises. My news of London calling pales in comparison to that. I'm proud of her.

For some reason, there's a small lump in my throat for all the moments that will not come back easily now. Heaven knows what brings it on; I wasn't feeling much of anything when she called me tonight to confirm, but taking out the trash wearing only my slippers brought me back to high school. I could so vividly picture myself in CCA's mandatory culottes after a game or practice-- if memory serves me correctly, this would have been volleyball regionals weekend -- slipping into my dad's slippers to take the trash out, feeling too lazy to lace anything. I miss his silly jumping exercises in the basement ("I want you to see if you can hit this tile with your head") and tapings -- Dave's dad used to record games for us, and man, would we catch it if we hadn't posted up or boxed out or picked and rolled or won the jump. And by "we," I mean me: Jen was the athlete. I was the loudmouth. Still, she'd stay down in the rec room with him for hours while I'd inevitably wander upstairs to shower or play the piano...ah, another thing I miss dearly. Right now, this house is so cold that I miss crawling into bed with her -- which I would do for longer than I will admit -- just because she gave off enough heat at night to be dubbed "the Furnace." On cold nights like this, man...she was the best. Cold feet, cold hands, whatever-- she never felt it as long as she was asleep. Anyway.

My dad was speechless when I called to tell him the news this weekend. Poor man: in two days, he's lost two daughters to different continents. I don't think he quite gets that we took him seriously when he told us we could do anything, go anywhere, speak up whenever we wanted to. It's as if we're back to claim that promise only to find he never thought we were listening at all. It made all of this -- this glorious, messy law school existence -- feel like more of an accomplishment than it does in the day-to-day when he told me that what he respects is that I, repeatedly, jump out in faith because I believe in my goal, even though that is loosely defined. When he said, "I don't know that I could do it," I just kept quiet. Those of you who know me know my father has bipolar disorder and has been disabled since I was in high school; those of you who know me well know that that one statement gets to the core of the things I had to force myself to get past when I realized I wasn't loving my dad properly. The things my dad taught me about dreaming were all in second-person; in many ways, his illness talked him into giving up on his own life awhile ago. And I pray for change in that; but in the meantime, I take these moments as gifts. Times to tell him that, truth be told, my "dreams" only happen because so many people love me, keep me grounded, give me time, and he is not the least of these.

"The thing is, Jessica, that I know that one of these days you're just going to get on a plane and not come back. And I support you, you know that. But I just wonder when that day will come." What do you say to that when your own suspicion is that, yes, that's exactly right, that you won't be ready for it any more than the people you love will be, but that you're going to go anyway?

I think what I will eventually say is that broken people -- and we are all broken -- still teach truth, still spill love, still bring courage. Sometimes they do this more than others in better situations; what have they got to lose? I am even prouder of him as I hear him fight the urge to ask me to stay, to change the part of me that steals away from this side of the Atlantic, because he taught us that this? This is life. Fighting for things bigger than we are, believing and being the underdog, the long shot, the eleventh seat.

Sorry, Maura. I'm pontificating again. Must! Be! Funnier! Soon!

i'm in love with a girl who's in love with the world
and i can't help but follow
and i know someday she is bound to fly away
to stay over the rainbow
but sometimes we forget who we've got
who they are and who they are not
in love, there's more than black and white
keep it loose, child
keep it tight
- amos lee