Artifacts of Adolescence

My parents moved in March. They’re in the same awesome neighborhood in Philly so my trips home haven’t lost the geography of their nostalgia. But the boxes they’re storing for me have moved, so this afternoon I found myself sitting in a warehouse styled hallway, complete with flickering lights, surrounded by boxes and artifacts of my adolescence.

I was looking for letters from my friend M. who died in December 2005. Each trip back home since then I have ventured to find more memorabilia of her and our relationship. Pictures, then clothes, and now on to letters.

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In the past few days I have seen some friends that I haven’t seen in a very long time…since before I last moved, or even since before I started college. There we were, drinking good beer after good beer moving back and forth through shared memories, politics, lovers, aspirations and work. Time seemed to pass on its on accord, and I was (am) filled with nostalgia for some part of myself that perhaps is only a memory and perhaps has yet to manifest.

…
I have made piles of letters. Some from M. yes, and my grandparents, but others are from old friends with whom I used to write regularly. I notice phases of stationary and stickers, recognize familiar addresses and handwriting, absent minded doodles and exciting stamps from summer travels and semesters abroad. Some letters have no dates and I read them again and again searching for clues. When did this happen? Did I know then how much it might all later matter? Was I awake? Was I alive? Did I appreciate?

As I write this I am greeted with the familiar composition of my parent’s late night arguing. Earlier in the week they graced me with a soundscape of spoons hitting dessert bowls, a sacred time of ice cream and quiet conversation.

In their old house I used to have a palpable, visceral experience of memory whenever I came home after a long absence. I think it started in college but maybe it started earlier, after summers away forming friendships fueled by the intensity of late night adolescent conversation. Walking through the front door, guarded by a lace curtain, I would feel a stifling sort of remembrance of family holidays spent battling alcoholism and mental illness. A walking tour through the corners of my room, where I cultivated a talent for addictive and secretive behaviors, would lead to a sick twist of energy racing up my spine. And glancing out the window I’d be covered with nostalgia for hours spent out on the roof late at night chain smoking and talking to friends, trying to articulate my sense of self, sense of place, sense of time, sense of relationship.

There is a feeling of love in all these places.

…
We’re older now and nicer to our bodies. We kayak and bike, wear sunscreen and motorcycle helmets, discuss socially responsible investing and plans for our futures (we plan to have futures). The hugs are familiar in spite of the time, the goodbyes take forever, and I get home very late.

I don’t know where this narrative is going; perhaps to a place of gratitude. These relationships continue. These artifacts of paper and prose, manifestos of hope and memoirs of disappointment continue. I have so much. Thank you.

A Return to Veganism (Take Two)

So I sat down to write a post that rapidly was becoming an autobiography of eating. A few paragraphs in I was starting to bore the hell out of myself. The whole epic was really meant as a contextualized introduction to the announcement, that in April I returned to veganism.

The long and short of it is that I go in and out of phases of thinking about what I eat. After managing to stay vegan in college, in Australia, and on a 10 week road trip around these grand ‘ol omnivorous United States, I went back to just being just vegetarian shortly after we moved to Tucson. The truth is I got kinda lazy. I ate cheese, I watched TV, I drove a car to work, I wasted time. And perhaps I needed these years of fallow time to just rest up and eventually bore myself back into thinking about the choices I make.

A few months ago I read this article in the UU World. It more or less reminded me of all my reasons for going vegetarian when I was 12 and vegan when I was 19. I decided it was time for me to take a bit of a challenge back into my everyday life, and change how I eat.

This past week I have of course also been quitting smoking. It has been interesting (to say the least) to watch my desires for old comforts to emerge. Those of you who know me know that I bite my nails. I started biting my bails when I was six years old and my parents wanted me to stop sucking my thumb. So clearly I have a long history of replacing one comfort habit with another.

I’ve been kinda silent on this blog the last couple months. One excuse is of course being a puppy mom. Beyond that I think I’ve been in some sort of passively introspective cloud that had me worried about blogging. What is my own voice, I wondered. Why am I still so stuck in my own head when there are real things happening in the world? And why would I want to share my own revelations about mediocrity and depression on the web?

And eventually I realized that the real issue is that there are still huge conversations I’m not ready to have with myself. And that is the fear that has been keeping me dormant.

Towards the end of college I decided I wanted to be a minister when I grew up. By the summer after college I had made a short list of perspective seminaries (the same list I am still working with today). Yet I knew I wasn’t ready to pursue seminary yet, I didn’t feel together enough to embark on such an intense journey.

It might be time.

It might be time for me to care about what I eat and how it impacts my body and this world. It might be time for me to care about how I spend my time, how present I can be in relationships, at work, in joy and sorrow. It might be time for me to stop waiting for the perfect time and just forge ahead – raising my voice, even as I am learning to use it.

For Real

Today my friend Princess graduated from college. She made her grandma a promise that she would quit smoking when she graduated.

Princess brought her grandma to my church on Christmas Eve and she loved the service so much she cried. Tonight, at a graduation dinner this same grandma was doing sake bombs (amazing!). So, it is safe to say that I love this grandma.

Which is to say, that tomorrow, I too am going to quit smoking. For real. You are all welcome to hold me to this commitment.

I started smoking in eighth grade. I remember thinking I would hate the taste, and therefore it wouldn’t become habit. Opps. Then I thought I would smoke, but only outside, or only for a year, or only…. So, here I am 12 or 13 years later, quitting a habit I initially thought I wouldn’t ever have.

J. doesn’t think I will really do it, but I think I will.

So there.

growling at the couch

So, I’ve been kinda absent from my blog for the last month.  I’ve been busy being a puppy mom (and even as I type, Emmett is sitting on the couch barking and growling at a toy), and overworking at my job that apparently doesn’t have the money to give me a raise or more hours next year.  (Now the puppy is growling at the couch itself.)

I hope to start writing more soon.  There are so many posts half drafted in my mind.  In the meantime – pictures.

                                        

Puppy Blogging

Today J. and I became puppy parents!

 

We adopted 3 month old Emmett from Pima Animal Control, which was a less than happy place – very minimal, fairly crowded – and you know that some of the dogs aren’t going to get adopted, and then it is pretty much the end for them.   Our Emmett is a pit bull / boxer, so we have our work cut out for us helping him to be a fun and friendly dog, but also helping other people overcome their assumptions and fears about pit bulls. 

 

We have been thinking in broad hypotheticals about getting a dog.  We had been thinking about adopting a pup at some vague point in the future – somewhere between learning how to regularly water our rosemary bush and having kids.  We had also been talking some about our (my?) tendency to over plan major life decisions.

 

For instance we have no interest in having kids right now.  And yet for a whiel we had been measuring out how long to stay in Tucson since we know that graduate school will take ever so many years (and who wants to  have kids when they are in school), and then it takes a few years to start a career (cause who wants to have kids when you are makinhg your grand grown up debut in the world), and then weow, we would need to have kids cause one’s we’d be in our mid 30’s (and who wants to have kids too old).  We found ourselves somehow making life choices for the here and know based around having kids, even though the whoel point of not having kids right now was to not have to make decisions based around kids right now.

 

Deep breath.

 

We’ve come to realize that the honest truth is that we have no idea when we will have kids, cause really there is never an ideal time.  All we know is that we are not having them now.

 

And it turns out that maybe the timing for pets isn’t something we can map out years ahead of time either.  Cause as I’m writing this a furry little creature is napping on my lap.  

And since he is so freakin cute, I’m gonna end this post and go hang out with him.                                                                                    

Where I’ve been, what I’m doing

I haven’t posted in a bit and wanted to give folks a sense of what I’ve been up to.

Those vegan cupcakes have kept following me. Last weekend I was in California for a training and wouldn’t you know it, a beautifully iced agave nectar vegan cupcake was waiting for each participant. Then yesterday, Princess left three little cupcakes for me and J. on a flowery china plate, so today I am once again having coffee and cupcakes for breakfast. Tip: definitely always recommend your favorite cookbooks to all your friends.

On Thursday I turned 25. I’m feeling good about that.

Petitpoussin wrote a great post on identity, which I mean to respond to in a post of my own when things slow down.

‘Cause not only has this been a birthday week, highlighted by a visit from my parents, but tomorrow is the installation service for our minister, who we will call Rev. D., who began her service to our church this past fall. For those of you who might not be familiar with the ins and outs of church culture, installation services are a big deal. Exciting and wonderful, but also time consuming and stressful in that, do we have all the details in order, and what will I wear kind of way.

And of course Sunday mornings keep coming around as well. Tomorrow morning I will narrate worship. In costume. As a 18th century illeterate mystic farmer, Thomas Potter, cause nothing starts a Sunday better than some historical cross dressing.

But first, today J. and I are going to a baseball game between the Giants and the Rockies with my parents. (Tucson hosts spring training games – though we seemed to have skipped spring, and moved right into summer – today’s high is 94.) I’m not usually the sports going type, and in the past year it has sometimes seemed like I’m not even the social type. Yet with increasing frequency the need to prioritize my relationships over work becomes very clear. I spent Thursday afternoon having a picnic at an oasis (seriously) hearing what my parents were doing in life when they were 25. And today, the opportunity to watch a game with my dad – I haven’t done that in at least 10 years, and who knows when the opportunity will arise again.

So hello to everyone reading this where ever you might be. May you have happiness and sunshine and the joy of good relationships with friends and family.

On poetry, procrastination and the plane I need to catch

So, I need to leave in three hours to go to California (yes, another stay at our favorite Catholic retreat center), for a training on Pastoral Care for Religious Educators. I haven’t done my homework. We were supposed to read a book – “The Helper’s Journey: Working with people facing grief, loss and life threatening illness.” I have to say, I find myself a bit intimidated by that kind of title (so I spent the week nursing a cold with some historical fiction).

In many ways, not for the first time, this is a post about procrastination. I like my job and I like my life, so why do I put off the things that I have myself chosen to do. One of my friend’s thinks procrastination increases pressure, and that she for one produces better work under pressure. Another friend, M., thinks procrastination is a way of avoiding failure. If we are always putting things off we are never giving life are all, and if we are never giving life our all, we aren’t ever really trying and subsequently can’t ever really fail. My own procrastination style probably lies somewhere between these truths.

So, this morning, this week, what am I avoiding by putting off work and reading? Often I find that I am reminding myself that I enjoy the work that I do, that I have the privilege of working with so many people in such a meaningful fashion. That the writing I do for my job is creative and fun, that the people I work with (somehow, sometimes) gain something from my presence and performances, and my own soul is nourished working with people in the context of worship and religious education.

That I am going to this training cause 14 months ago a youth in a church a few hours away from where I work committed suicide, and of course there arose within me that wave of – what do I do? I am not prepared for this.

Who is prepared for a tragedy? Who wants the job of explaining such an event to the 16 year olds, 14 year olds, 12 year olds they work with, not to mention their parents? I went to a workshop a few years back on liberal religion and crisis. The speaker (a very witty, very irreverent nun) said the role of liberal religion in crisis was not to give answers but to create the space for people to ask, “Why did this happen” and answer “I don’t know.”

We all have so many questions. And one form of spiritual intimacy can be found in the space we create through the asking of questions, and the reverent silence that can sometimes unfold when we do not loose ourselves seeking answers.

There’s a poem that’s been lingering in my mind for several weeks (we’re using it in service later this month), and I leave you with these words before I drive up a hill south of LA and continue to explore new corners of the work that I do, and perhaps in so doing, come to some deeper understand of why it is that I do (and sometimes don’t do) the work that I have chosen as my own.

Hold fast to dreams
for if dreams die
life is a broken winged bird
that cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
for when dreams go
life is a barren field
frozen with snow.

- By Langston Hughes

Soundscapes

For Liz and for petitpoussin.

Thursday. Coffee grinding, music playing, conversations to my left and right, keys clicking. Change being counted, newspaper unfolding, coffee grinding ceases, and rain. I could be anywhere.

How often do we stop and listen?

Wednesday night, awake with eyes closed, just before dawn. Rain, the chirping of the coqui, the rustle of sheets, and, in the morning, what is this, a rooster? Yes, a rooster, then later a siren, and more rain.

I first heard the term “soundscape” when I was in college. The concept is exactly what you are thinking – the sounds that form a place. Like a landscape, soundscapes start as compositions of the “natural” world and are layered with the auditory impacts of human presence. Your beautiful view of the beach is intruded upon both by the industry blurring the coastline and the really loud tourist that you somehow hope you are not becoming.

I have been visiting a friend in Hawaii for the last few days, so I am a bit behind on blogging. Last week the NY Times magazine ran a piece on the auditory loss of biodiversity and a man has devoted his life to recording so many “places” that we are in danger of never hearing again.

I read this piece on one of the three planes that it took to get me from the desert to the tropics, and the story stayed with me as I encountered places that were new to me, and yet reminiscent of other places, by not just sight, but sound. And not just sounds I had heard before, but sounds I had heard of, sounds I had expected to hear, and others that came as a surprise.

Saturday, the crunch of glass like rocks, beginning their slow path to soil, beneath three sets of hiking boots. Waves pounding against rocks. A helicopter. The hiss of lava falling into the ocean. Excited gasps and the click of cameras.

Friday. So many birds, waterfalls, more waves still – the Tropical Botanical Gardens. And then Karaoke with old and new friends.

Sunday night, we stop to look at the stars. A silence of sorts, my own exclamations, and the hum of the car’s motor. Sunday afternoon, snorkeling, hearing my own breathing, the movement of water, my muted “ohs” which vibrate through the tide pools as I float only feet away from a sea turtle, living reef, schools of fish.

A couple speaking in Spanish, a blender, a child’s footsteps running, keys clicking, classical music playing, loud announcements, planes landing, the beep of an EZ-Go, and the crunch of fast food filled paper bags opening and closing. Where am I now as I write this?

And tomorrow, what sounds does tomorrow bring?  What sounds now mean home?

One Month

In one month I will have been to Hawaii, hiked through lava fields, snorkeled near sea turtles and sang karaoke with petitpoussin.

In one month I will have been to California for a training on Pastoral Care for Religious Educators. That’s right, another intense weekend spent with the roaming peacocks of the Mary and Joseph Retreat Center.

In one month I will have celebrated my 13 year anniversary of being a vegetarian.

In one month I will have turned 25, which I suppose means, I must finally admit I have survived adolescence, and entered the sometimes mundane realms of adulthood where people watch both what they eat and say.

In one month my parents will be visiting from Philadelphia, after selling their house and after my dad has finished his radiation treatments. We will hike, and picnic, explore cute little southwest towns, and go to a spring training baseball game.

In one month I will have cleaned my apartment and (hopefully) built more bookshelves to house the piles of reading materials that currently are taking over our home.

In one month, this Sunday’s intergenerational worship service on peace that I still have to prepare for will have come and gone, and the topic of dreams will be dominating my working hours.

In one month I will be compiling a list of people to take to coffee so that I can politely beg them to spend a portion of their time volunteering in our Religious Education Program, ‘cause yes, children are important.

…

I go in and out of stages where my tendency to plan ahead starts to dictate all the other actions of my day. (I sometimes find writing upcoming events in my calendar calming). Things seem so complete before they have even begun; time takes on a different note, and an unidentifiable doubt creeps up from my datebook, through pencil and pen to my hand, and I begin to wonder what else I might be doing.

One Week

In one week I will be on a plane (really three planes) to visit a dear old friend in Hilo, HI, who is known to the blogosphere as petitpoussin.  I am totally excited and am already mentally packing my suitcase.

In one week I will have also done insane amounts of work, shopped for oragimi paper and beads, co-lead an intergenerational worship service on Making Peace, oriented parents of fourth and fifth graders to Our Whole Lives: Comprehensive Sexuality Education Program, and have attended an all day staff retreat at a dude ranch.  (’cause I really do live in Arizona).

In one week I will hopefully have fixed the perpetually there flat tire on my bicycle and done my laundry.

In one week the newest issue of the Earth First! Journal (where J. works and I volunteer) will be in the mail headed to subscribers and radical bookstores.

In one week I will have said good bye for another week to J. who I love very much.

In one week I will have attended a potluck, gone on a hike, auctioned off a bicycle at the Food Conspiracy Coop’s annual meeting, and seen Tucson’s 2007 production of The Vagina Monologues.

In one day it will be one year since my grandfather died. And I don’t really know what to do about that.  I miss you grandpa.  Thank you for so much.