Let us smile and laughrica!

This one goes out...

...to all the peeps at Invisible Children.

Kony 2012.... really?!

You can buy Kony 2012 merchandise on your site.... REALLY?!

Resolute.

This blog began as a forum for self-expression and a means to flesh out my 2011 New Year's Resolutions.  I made a decent go of it.  I definitely tackled more than I could handle, and thus didn't fulfill all my goals.

--> But! I made a point to revisit them throughout the year, and as a result I feel like I spurred myself on to action I wouldn't have taken otherwise.

--> In fact!  I've just hit my stride (March 2012) at letter-writing.  (A goal I made in...ahem... Jan 11.  Meh -- some things come in their own time.)

So, when 2012 rolled around, I felt self-disappointment at my conviction-less outlook on new goals.  But,  instead of feeling defeated, I decided to wait it out and see what came.

After reading through the book of James with my small group, I think instead of a developing massive list of small things, I've really resonated with this goal for the next few months/2012:

 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.  

-James 4:17

SHAZZAAAM!/Burn.  (I mean, not really - but it's definitely a high calling.  I think I'll spend as much time this year contemplating "what qualifies as 'the good I ought to do?'" as I spend on actually attempting to step into the calling.)

Just saw this on a blog I follow, and feel like it's a nice, folksy way of capturing my goal...

Striving for the good, a nod and a 'tip of the lid' today....

save that for the black and white

The soul emerged from these loops of affection.  The loops were momentary and fragile, also permanent and enduring.  

-p. 373, David Brooks, The Social Animal

I spent a while (and a few conversations) questioning if my wording/my entry yesterday was too harsh --if I should soften things.  (This blog has become far from something silly in for me over the past few weeks.)

I had a really good conversation with Charles about it all.  His incisive question to me was - as a believer in God, does cursing life mean you are cursing Him, too?

?

Ummm?  Perhaps?  I think I was angry at the unpredictability and inexplicable suffering in life.  As a believer in a Maker, and Christ, who stands in these gaps for us, I have hope in more.  But, I don't think that invalidates the moments when we, as humans, question that which is beyond our understanding.

Perhaps my anger was sin,
failure to trust.

But, I think {hope} there's beauty in the dialogue, the process and where we travel as we undergo periods of questioning and suffering.  And I want to document and remember these moments in the journey.

So... that.

Up next: I will likely blog about napping.  Or other cutting, insightful white-person insights on coffee, how awesome my dog is or all the meticulous details on my shower-of-the-day.

And for now, this song.  Which I like:

Loops

Sometimes words don’t suffice.

Yesterday I was trying to put into words my excitement and anticipation about an upcoming trip and best-friend-reunion.  However, for things such as these I couldn’t find words.

Instead – a picture.
I wish everyone could know my little brother well.  He’s a reserved, inquisitive and intensely thoughtful young man – full of quirks and facets unbeknownst to many.

One of my favorites is how he expresses excitement.  Here, words will be lopsided and inept, but I’ll still give it a go... When Corey gets excited he flaps his hands – in a way that is chaotic but bounded.  He rocks from side to side and sometimes jumps up and down ever so slightly.

He’s sixteen now, so this method of expression is deemed no longer appropriate and he’s learning to do it less and less.  But sometimes, when he’s interested and invested in something, he’ll ask you a question (leaning in ever so slightly and pausing to process) and then, without hesitation will launch into an exclamatory response and enter into this state of elation and anticipation.

This is what I picture when I have a deep sense of enthusiasm, expectation and joy.

I love my brother, wish I lived closer to him and wish I knew his quirks and the intricacies of the man he’s becoming even more fully.  Along this vein, I want to cherish all that I know about my brother and get to experience with him as I mourn for my dear friend who lost her younger sister this week.

Fuck you very much, life, for inexplicable losses.
But thank you all the more for the joys that precede them.

mishmash and loss aversion

{The Alchemist, Remedios Varo}

I thought for a minute, and then I got heavy, heavy boots.

-JSF, ELIC

When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder. Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much. A calendar that showed the wrong month. I could have cried over it. I did. Where the smoke from a chimney ended. How an overturned bottle rested at the edge of a table.

I spent my life learning to feel less. Every day I felt less. Is that growing old? Or is it something worse? You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness. 

-also, JSF, ELIC

Plus: this. Read this.

Tuesdays, redeemed

There's a Spades-sized hole in my heart.

Thanks for semi-filling it, Gypsy Queen.

February morning musings.

Public transit in Baltimore is haphazard.  Buses, metro, circulator, MARC train and the light rail – and all are disjointed, running through different parts of the city without a central connection point.  Resultantly, every morning when I leave for work I’m overcome by a compulsion to drive in (and cough up ten bucks) to avoid the conveyance-induced confusion.

When this happens, mostly, I’m forgetting that the light rail is awesome.

Reason- first- It’s a called a light rail, which immediately leads you to picture this:

Reason – deux -  The light rail brings together a true hodgepodge of individuals and always lends itself to interesting situations.  There’s difference between interesting bus interactions (mostly the same woman, alternating between sleep and prayer-yelling, which entails asking Jesus to remind her children that she can rain down punishment if they don’t stop in their hell-bound efforts to kick every detached, placid commuter in the shin) and interesting light rail interactions.

The best way to capture interactions is through conversations I overhear.

Exhibit a.
I overheard a conversation between two middle-aged women about the Baltimore City Official (police officer, I assume) who checks the light rail tickets.

Light rail ticket- checks occur on a random basis.  However, when checks occur in the morning I’ve noticed that it’s generally the same, middle-aged woman reviewing tickets.  Of this officer, the woman I sat behind said:

“That woman is just so nice.  She’s always kind.  Once I didn’t have my ticket, and she just took a moment to help me hop off at the stop and get another.  Most officers push folks around and hassle you.  She don’t.  She’s just so nice, everyone respects her.”

“She is. She’s the sweetest.”

And on and on they went.  My words will be lacking here – but this conversation really encapsulated
something I’d already been taking in about this officer.

The light rail contingent is a conglomerate of humanity and many try to skirt the system by taking a risk, failing to purchase a ticket on the off-chance no one checks.  And then once someone does come by to check, the story starts flowing.

Many of the individuals of the light rail are rugged. Or withdrawn. Or mumblers.  Or entitled.
Still, this woman is mild-mannered and authoritative; gentle and firm; considerate and unyielding.  Most of all – she genuinely respects every person she interacts with, and really sees them.

I want to be that kind of person.

Exhibit be:
This morning.  The woman I sat behind (in my head, I’ve named her Bess) noticed a friend at one of the stops and starting gently tapping the window, as she told another rider she was chatting with – “I know her! I know her!  Heyyyy Teresa, heyyyy!”

(This could sound annoying – but it was actually really sweet and endearing.  Picture, Buddy the Elf when he talks about Santa.)

And then, when I was getting off, in conversation with her friend, her overheard words gently reminded me

“Everything belongs to God.  Everything does.  … The whole earth is His with everything in it.”

Indeed.