Mille Feuille: pastry rules all.

Still recovering from my last baking faux pas; a homemade kettle corn that failed to caramelize and became gritty sugar clumps, I attempted to ward off failure for at least a week.


But cardamom and nutmeg leaped into my cart at the market to join my stock of canned pumpkin at home. 


Muffins were too easy a victory to attempt after the popcorn disappointment.


I had to up the ante this time. It could only mean one thing: a pastry.


Not just any pastry but the daintiest of all dessert loves: the mille feuille in all its flaky wonder. I knew if I botched this I would bake nothing but pre-packaged brownie mix and cornbread as a reminder to leave tarts to the culinary elite.


I tousled my way through the ingredient cupboard to take inventory. With exactly 2.5 cups of flour left and three flowery-scented heirloom apples, I had my green light.


Stackable bowls out. Recipe blog up.


Dough savvy as I wasn't, I managed to cut butter through a landscape of flour with a fork, sweeping it up into a central mass.


I hold two directives responsible for the good dough outcome I achieved:


Not over mixing.
Not letting the dough get warm (unless yeast is involved).


Following rules was my save in assembling tarts nothing less than precious. The darling apple cut-outs fit snugly inside their spice-flecked houses. You could almost say I tucked them into bed. 


Plated and cooed over, apple treats have ushered me into new heights of baking glory. I fancy my ascent to continue with a spice cake or maybe something Jewish with all the delicious somethings that can be done with honey. Things are looking up already.

My very own Grey's Anatomy episode.

With fall comes all things romantic (see list) and a bit of indulgent TV series watching. Slumped down in the couch for two episodes of Grey's Anatomy is where I am found after work.

My latest novel lies discarded on the floor somewhere near my passenger seat. I like to keep it near me during long drives. It has such a pretty cover. I almost feel bad for it.

I heard a recent parenting radio broadcast suggest that "TV media speaks to the heart while a book speaks to the mind." Within the context of orienting children toward literature instead of compulsive TV watching, it makes sense. My mom read to me often. I should know better.

But as a journalist, the statement makes me all kinds of conflicted. I received an overpriced education to become a news media person. I also work at Nordstrom. Sure, the news is full of bad messages. It dampens the glee of lunch hour in under a minute with stories of destruction from across the globe. Events are skewed are presuppositions are made. It is also a thruway for advertising and don't we all hate that!

If Jeremiah 17:9 suggests that the heart is the seat of wickedness and the news media is reporting on said wickedness, well then, they may just be doing their job.

After the seventh (estimated) Grey's episode this week, I made a trip to the dermatologist. Nothing out of the ordinary, just for an examination of a small bump at the base of my scalp. It took Dr. Tavelli all of 5 minutes to assess and tell me:

"You're a healthy kid. The spot doesn't concern me too much. We can inject it with cortisone and it will likely disappear"

Or...

"We can cut it off, put a couple of stitches in the scalp and send you on your way."

I answered decidedly, lacking my usual discretion:

"Cut it off? Yes, lets do that."

As Meredith Grey said, "Surgeons like to cut." It is not always the answer and in my case, did nothing life-altering. Romanced by the operating field delivered through my TV screen the chaotic brilliance and metallic sheen of a ten-blade, I wanted "the procedure."

 It may sound macabre (Happy Halloween!) and maybe it is, but I wanted there to be blood. A small clip and a couple of sutures later, I requested a mirror to see where the two sides of my flesh were sown together.

At the outset of this week was the dilemma of which fall boot to purchase for the season. By Thursday, I'm cavalier about clipping a piece of my scalp off.

What a welcome to October. I think it should involve more reading and a little less medical drama just to be on the safe side. Who knows if I might find other reasons to be visiting a surgical table soon...

That was meant to sound creepy.

Now read my list of romantic fall activities to make yourself feel better:

Smiling pumpkins.
The moccasin heel.
The return of the cozy blanket.
Smiling pumpkins.
A heap of old sweaters, some old, some new.
A game plan for colds (not getting one).
The familiar hug of denim.
Don't mind if I add a scarf.
Time indoors.
The bikini body postponed for another season.
Saying yes to a scone.
Applesauce making.
Collecting chestnuts.
Leaf smell.
Curtains.

September

Praise be to the back-to-school shopper! If not for sales, for social interaction. September blew into Portland on the smoky breeze of a forest fire. I am thankful it's here.

August was a sluggish retail month, a time for making lists because there is time to make lists when you are paid to remain upright and exuberant for a period of eight hours a day. For an introvert it can be an exhausting feat.

After punching my employee number into the register at mindblowing rate of five times per minute (in the event of a miraculous increase in sales figures), I am fabulous at waiting.


Waiting for that velvet hum of the receipt printer. That sound is nice.

Wait. Wait.
 Mistake woman's purse dog for domesticated squirrel. Laugh(discretely).
Wait. Point the way to women's restroom.
Wait. 
Answer phone. Wait. 
Take a stroll ( to the other register). 
Wait.
Swivel mannequins hands right side up after being tampered with by sugar-infused children. 
Wait again.
Scan the floor for signs of life. Wait. 
Locate happenstance customer. Appear casual, not desperate.
Maximize small talk. Ask questions. Lots of questions.
Accept a return, with enthusiasm.


Wait... 

The sky was on fire when I dropped into Warm Springs canyon. Islands of light hedged back the darkness of the sleeping valley and desert cliffs. The far ridges melted. I drew my focus from the center line and waited for memory to interpret the sight. It was past sunset hour and my eyes were hazy. But something familiar was happening.


Volcano? The searing borders glowed molten hot with drops of gold. They were of a beautiful kind of danger that moved cars to the shoulder to watch from the sloping grade. I slowed with anticipation to find a spot, but I was alone.


Concrete gravity pulled my car a little deeper into the valley floor and the image began to raise in monstrosity from my perspective. Silhouetted trees engulfed in flames jogged my memory. The orange was hot like it should be and smoke dampened the air of night. I rolled down my windows feel the winds generated with the storm that carried the warmth of a forest fire. 


The crest of orange singed the hillside as I wondered what other common dangers I had missed in their spontaneous glory. I have yet to see a real whale breech the surface of ocean as I've wanted or to lay under the Aurora Borealis. Things out of control. I wanted a picture but I knew the best details would be gone.


The night closed up all the gaps of light as I drove on from that moment. The fervor of nature was a pressing reminder. There is a God who is ruled by none.

Salt.

It has a way of indulging us in the simple things. Things that punch through our monotony. Things that make our senses real and alive.

Things like watermelon, a bath tub, a steak and an ocean soak are best with a tiny grain having much meaning: salt. It's as ordinary as the girl holding the umbrella and it always pours too fast from the spout. The irony of flavorless salt the Word makes perfectly clear: it is good for nothing because its meant for everything.

From Matthew 5...

"You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men."

Ordinary means in every way, important, in terms of objects and individuals. Water is ordinary and water is life. People are commonplace while they are also eternal. This makes for a miracle in even the easiest people to ignore. C.S. Lewis put it this way:

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations — these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit— immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.

Perpective is necessary when being the salt of the earth starts to get boring, or when we marinate too much our own ideas and opinions and the rest of the world starts looking bland. Then we've lost flavor. Then the banality of selfishness and the ugliness of narcissism appear. If ordinary is good enough for God to use, then we all have plenty to bring to the table. 

Productive suggestions for the wildly disruptive coffee shop "talker"

• Look up the word logorrhoea
• Learn sign language
• Breathe
• Eat a banana
• Consider the benefits of a tonsillectomy
• Consider a career in telemarketing
• Take a vow of silence
• Host a community forum where others come willingly to hear "your life story"
• Avoid microphones
• Make a grocery list
• Do a crossword puzzle
• Check your blood pressure
• Check the weather
• Count coffee beans
• Tip the barista
• Read that book in front of you

Summer bounty

.........


The rows were worn by footsteps. I batted my bowl next to my side, hunting and tasting. Strawberry Swing soundtracked my thoughts as I glared into the sunlight: "Which spot is best?"
My arm itched and I wasn't planning to get my knees involved. A lazy balance suspended over the green sprawl was the aerial method used to pick from the lot. I shouldn't have been that careless: the strawberries were free after all.

Much of the little I know about farming is consistent with life--its droughts, bounty, loss and life. Maybe that's why Jesus wrapped his parables in the rich, solid language of earth and its seasons. 

Zora Neale Hurston once said, "There are years that ask questions and years that answer." 

I love the idea and yet I cannot figure which is more thrilling, knowing that a question has been answered or that the answer, though hidden for a time, exists. This is the glorious chase of wisdom. The marvel that fills my head as I read passages from Proverbs 8 is born of words like these:

"While as yet He had not made the earth or the fields,
      Or the primal dust of the world.
        When He prepared the heavens, I was there.."

I, wisdom? Personified wisdom.

"When He marked out the foundations of the earth, 

      Then I was beside Him as a master craftsman;^[b]
      And I was daily His delight, 
      Rejoicing always before Him, 
      Rejoicing in His inhabited world, 
      And my delight was with the sons of men."

Wisdom dancing, clapping, sounding off joy? What an event for my eyes to attend to. I wish to understand what it means. I wish to have a little for myself too.


I looked at the strawberry lot and smiled with a bowl half full and a stomach at ease. This was a good yield for a cold summer. Though not all the berries were sweet, delight was in the hunt.

Not all things lovely are always in plain sight. They must be sought, dusted off and treasured. My bowl bounced at my feet as our car turned off the rutted path and onto highway. They probably wouldn't make it into jam and I was glad not to preserve them. The full glory of their moment had come. I was just there to appreciate.

........

Vitamins and lipstick

Nordstrom.com

God is in the details.--Mies Van der Rohe

For  inspiration, sometimes a woman is in need of lipstick. Read this: Beauty and the Brain and get yourself a shade darker than pink, preferably something fiery or if you're into summer trends: coral. In the spirit of the election season ramp-up, look for Sarah Palin "red." Never mind.

"Nectarine" by Estee Lauder is also lovely if Sarah Palin "red" doesn't quite suit you. Go ahead now. And if by wondrous default your lips solicit you male attention: your welcome. Please send me a tip on what to do with it.  

 I need a situation to wear my new pair of Jeffery Campbell pumps or they may very well create a situation of their own. But if I can't find one, I'll make one. It's pretty simple: I like them and they like me. 

We may have wandered far from the essentials but what makes for elegance is often that one item of luxury. Employment with Nordstrom will likely welcome more than a few luxuries into my wardrobe, posing an indefinite exercise in self-control. I hope it does not implode my savings plan.  

I  also think it best to continue taking vitamins. In lieu of cardio, vitamins are magic, especially D as I believe the sun has "left the building" this June. Due to lack of sunlight, this unashamed nerd-out moment actually happened en-route to the mall:

Jamie: Do you think Victoria Secret has swim suits in yet?
Me: Recalibrating thoughts in silence. (Avoidance)
Jamie: ?
Me: Holman Illustrated Bible dictionary is on hold for me at the library. Can we go?

In any case, my vitamin-enriched, exercise-deficient body and I will soon accept that it is summer and find motivation to come out of hiding. Maybe the lipstick will help. Until then, I'm testing my luck with the library. How many books will they let me have for free? I'm up to seven.. 

Clint Black and thunderstorm nostalgia

I shouldn't have been surprised at the thunder. The pavement tried to warn me with its fuming scent and the air was uncommonly dense. Selective raindrops fell from the sky at a storm's early onset, though I didn't feel a single one touch me.

The C.D. in my disc changer cycled over on the drive home and I hit the FM button, half-expecting it to land me something good. 
Then as if on a cosmic cue or by silly coincidence, Clint Black started singing to me:

All the heaven's rivers come to life, I see it all unwind
I hear it talking through the trees and on the window pane
When I hear it I just can't believe
I never liked the rain

I'm not easily won by a country song. It's usually a problem with the lyrics or maybe that honky-tonk synthesizer with its twangy drone that makes my ears tickle. It is a musical genre that is reserved for two occasions in my life: karaoke and rodeos. Outside of those annual events, I wear denim jeans as unassumingly as the average citizen and strongly discourage others from allowing it to inspire their wardrobe.

In any case, I am white and hereby compelled to pay homage to country music because of my prarie-bonneted, trail blazing, ancestor settlers and the sad songs their lungs must have harbored over the Oregon Trail. How anthems of hardship on the plains has its modern translation in sequined chaps and belt buckles the size of Montana, I will never know.

Respect for my ancestors and skin color aside, there are a few songs I just like and they are counted among the albums of Clint Black. He was one of the first male voices I ever fell in love with on the radio, and a girl can't just forsake her first love on the account of a few bad lyricists.

Live at a summer concert a few years ago, he single-handedly redeemed all things good about country music with a few notes from beneath his black Stetson. I enamored still.

My relationship to country music about as fickle as this pre-summer weather: tiresome and generally untrustworthy. I am hard pressed to find relevance in music waxing nostalgic about catfish on a trot line and endless summer romance. I am about as urban a former country girl as could be found in all this rainy metropolis and yet its funny how a few raindrops and the right song can bring a past time crashing into the present.


A sky cracked with electricity is so great a wonder that I delayed sliding the glass door closed. With full sensory of the storm for a few minutes, the intermittent light show and my billowing curtains made me glad for that country song.

On nights like this I am reminded of the beauty of a place like Portland, despite the thriving city of "elsewhere" I long to be most of the time. In the storm and the rain come memories of what it was like to walk through the rain in seasons of youthful expectation for classes and the excitement of a crush in each one. Other places, I have certainly been, but in the returning, I haven't minded the rain as much.

It was good of Clint Black to remind me. He might even see me at the end of July, hunting for a good spot in the fairground crowd to hear that song he sings about rain..

Objective: typewriter.

Courtesy ETSY.com

Brevity is torture for every writer. Ubiquitous internet access makes it so that I cannot say what I want without the haunting suspicion that better information exists elsewhere. My blog entries are not miracles, of that I am sure. But to distill a single line of confident text always is.

With a typewriter, I am convinced that all the letter soldiers would go marching down a straight line to meaning. The driving keys from left to right would send up a delicious chatter, scaling the alphabet of my thoughts. I would stay up all night to use this typewriter, yes I would. I would happily abandon the backspace bar for an eternity of feeding papers one by one through a mill of ink.  
I was recently asked what one material possession I would take if my house was burning down. I really couldn't think of anything I would need that badly. But if I had a typewriter, not even a fiery inferno could make me part with it.

Like Ralphie on The Christmas Story believed that an "Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle" would transform him into a vigilante hero, my red typewriter would be the chronicle of endless revelation maybe and a love letter or two.

I'm getting ahead of myself. It's time for some research.

Heightened expectation.

Something has to spark the muse. Awaiting the untimely dispensation of creativity, I am driven into the night,empty handed of even one inspired thought to pen. By default, I then look to the work of others. Evermore consumed in the desperation and dejection that is the barren wasteland of unemployment, hopeful words are a continual feast to my heart. Here is a reading I can handle for the day; a heart that forsees future glory clipping the heels of the present..

Hush, hush, hush…

    I heard a sound, come from the ground

   All of the trees are a buzz
 Talking in tongues, talking with lungs, talking of freedom

    All of the earth is soon to give birth

  Look at the mountains alive

         Birds and the bees, insects and leaves

    All of us longing, longing for home

                
J.Foreman

Meet me in Portland

Roast here in the summer light

See you in the evergreens

I will catch you down on the Northeast side

-M.Kearney

My thoughts are many and I don't know what order to present them in. My heart is heavy with a kind of joy that is only attained when choosing to move toward hardship. In nearly four months of human rights work, my battles were almost entirely waged against fear.
Anxiety is a kind of elusive thing, not knowing its there at all until it strikes at the most inopportune moment. Like when starting a new position, or right before the big speech that I thought I was perfectly comfortable giving until I'm tripping over the intro.
I hate that.
I didn't know I cared so much about what other people thought of me too. I hate that I was   fearful of terrorism, sometimes in terrible ways picturing, what it would be like to blow up. But to face the fear, to rely on public transportation day in and out despite this persistent, gutwrenching strain, I learned to let it be.
When I fear much, truth has left me. God's character becomes hard to grasp and I go scrambling for earthly comfort, friendships, distractions, anger, anything to alleviate myself of the fear. It's really been incredible to become aware of this weakness. More incredible to realize just how many in this world are building their lives so as to avoid ever encountering it.
I am entrapped in this broken condition in which I find myself yielding to fear. But I am called to bear a different yoke. That of  hope.
 In Zechariah 9:12 it is written:

Return to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope.

I am irresistibly bound to this verse, returning to the triumphant echo of it's prose repeatedly. In the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, I am sealed with an inheritance of glorious hope. And what choice do I have as a child of the most high, but to look toward this hope with confidence?

None.

Jesus said, "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."
He is preemptive to correct my most natural tendency, to worry, to fret and cry out in moments of fear. Like the disciples on the angry seas, I too watch the waves of this world wreak devastation and wonder if they will swallow me whole. But what sweet joy when He orients me toward His goodness again.
Anticipating the familiar faces I had longed to see for months, I sat on a commuter flight from Seattle to Portland when a kind older gentleman took his seat next to me. His name was Terry which was his segue into the usual, tidy airplane conversations that so often occur. I told him of my time in D.C. with IJM, doubtful if he had ever heard of it. His silence suggested otherwise as he turned to me intently and said, "well, you should know that I'm the uncle of Gary Haugen, founder of IJM."
More shocked than I could express, I said, "Imagine that."
I know that it was not mere coincidence that Terry sat next to me at the conclusion of one the most meaningful seasons of my life. He was there to confirm what I should have known all along, that life with the Holy Spirit is ever onwards and upwards. 
The Lord delighted to send me off with a commissioning of his comfort. With a heart full of gratitude humming to the drone of the southbound plane, I looked out the widow at snow capped mountains and smiled. It wasn't just leaving D.C., I was coming home and hope was following me.




Courtesy A. Carillo

    




I woke up in that sheet-tousled, beaded sweat kind of way. A residual headache moved into my threshold of my awareness as I turned to face the half-open window next to my cot.


I could hear rain falling outside. My glasses were on the nightstand just where I discarded them. I reached out with languid dexerity to put them on again to confirm that the leaves on the shrubs were in movement.


I thought about how the rain would likely pass and how I liked that it did this, contrary to the furious unleash I had known to expect for days--sometimes weeks in the Northwest. Still turned over in bed, I thought some more. It wasn't time for a shower yet.

Yesterday was heavy with an expectant heat. A newcomer, I stumbled around the concrete between the Capitol building and the Senate offices in whatever fabric intolerably trapped my sweat against me. I bet it was Polyester.


I was not supposed to be thinking about sweat. I was there to have something to say to the legislative aides of Congressman Blumenhauer and Schrader, to the staff of Senator Wyden and Merkley. But how does one deal honestly with the emotional weight of reality that 27 million human beings are OWNED? It just seems absurd to me that I use that statistic without time to paint the picture of the brutishness, the ugly depravity, the desperate humanity that is the life of even a single slave.


All that ripples in the shallow pool of the political conscience is prioritized to foreign and domestic. I wanted to ask where the deep end was. I couldn't find how to shove slavery into either category with satisfaction. It is just heinous and that is all. In the world of budgets and other middle-sized objects, my colleague and I spoke of the Trafficking Victim Protection Reauthorization Act and how Oregon representatives could show their support to co-sponsor the bill. The meetings were positive and the aides showed what I ascertained to be genuine concern.


The cry of the suffering is never far off, but when we push it enough away, we won't have to listen. Or we can hear it, as surely as rain falling outside and confirm that our fears about our neighbors are more real than the tsunami that came crashing into Japan. As Gary Haugen said in his speech for the Global Prayer Gathering, reality always wins. When we begin to see the world falling all around us into broken pieces then we will care enough to begin fixing it. Nevermind the excuses and our generally large incompetence to do so. Justice was never a longing birthed in the heart of man, but that of God. I wish I cared about it more even at this moment but it's funny how something like a little comfort changes me.

Suddenly, I'm on a different level and continent and suddenly, that sub-human treatment of human beings becomes something that just can't quite be measured correctly in statistics. Or the criminal enterprise of the sex trade becomes tricky to pinpoint--so let's not overreact. This could be what Jesus meant when he said: he who has ears, let him hear! Truth involves more than perception, but an act of the will.

Clothed in spring.

An excerpt from “John Redding Goes to Sea” 1921:


Springtime in Florida is not a matter of peeping violets or bursting buds merely. It is a riot of color in nature—glistening green leaves, pink, blue, purple, yellows blossoms that fairly stagger the visitor from north. The miles of hyacinths lie like an undulating carpet on the surface of the river and divide reluctantly when the slow-moving alligators push their way log-like across. The nights are white nights for the moon shines with dazzling splendor, or in the absence of that goddess, the soft darkness creeps down laden with innumerable scents. The heavy fragrance of magnolias mingled with the delicate sweetness of jasmine and wild roses.



This paragraph is important. It was part of Zora Neale Hurston's first published short story in the literary magazine of Howard University. The paragraph is for some, too indulgent in detail. For some, the plot was overdone. I've only read this paragraph of the story, and still am glad that she wrote it. I also happen think that it's beautiful.


She took a risk by making this intimate gift of her writing public. She was born at just the right time for this manner of self-expression; her literature, rich with renderings of black culture and folklore at the outset of the Harlem Renaissance. But I'm sure there was a moment she hesitated to share it. A moment that if she yielded to her insecurity, I wouldn't be celebrating her artful prose.


This is the gift of community, the risk that makes writing slightly embarrassing. Committing words on paper is unavoidably introspective and mixed with a fear that what we've created is not really "us". Or if it is "us" that it is not what we wanted to see about ourselves. But if what we've written is honest, it will indicate the distance between who we are what we long to be.This is a hinting at our true identities.



The disparity between what we say and what we do is hypocrisy. We are least desirable in our own eyes when we trade actions for words and they grow anemic. We are most beautiful when in humility, our actions leave no need for words. I want no headstone for my life, because I would like it lived with entirety, with nothing left to say when its done, but these simple words of Jesus: "It is finished." This kind of life is barely the one I am living now, though the one I am stumbling toward. All my obsessive fears, anxieties and inconsolable longings are for a wholeness that I have yet to taste in food, or laughter or friends. They are for the meantime--joyful preoccupations, but only stand-ins and shadows of the greater things.


The tempestuous spring stirs all of these thoughts within me, and I am dividing reluctantly to events beyond my control, like the flowers in Hurston's story.  I want the clothing of nature: the flower's glorious potential achieved in simply being alive. It has no concern for the heat of day,or the cool of night for each will come at it's appointed time. Yet at the looming storms, I shirk this kind of flower-like peace, to toil for what cannot be gained without surrender: the use of my gifts, the cultivation of relationships, the quieting of all my discontentment and the courage to communicate his power in both word and deed.


Without animation from his Spirit that brings me daily life, I close up like a plant without rain, and well with no spring or animation within. And he asks me again:


“So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?" Matthew 8:28-30.


It then becomes not a matter of control, but the assurance that what shakes loose in a rumbling storm is the sweetness of rain. Open is the only way to receive.

At the community table, let's be nice.

Washington,


I want to love you. I really can't love you, but I want to.
You're assertive and unhelpful in manifold ways.
A city that wishes not to be civil, despite the political charade.
The blessed are not one step ahead on the escalator.
The blessed are not those who will to power, who run the races but have no riches in character.
To settle for the game? To this I am indignant.


I want to love you but I want to train you more.
That is no healthy relationship, that involves a sort of leash.
I sit down at your community table to reconcile and am looked over for my seat by a lunching couple.
They didn't want to dialogue, they wanted to eat.
Next to me, not with me.


My manner is hostile to you, Washington, and mistaken for naivety.
Like the waitress who pulled me aside on "a personal note".
She said to me: "You don't have to move for them. Next time just let them find another place to sit."
I understand that I need not always be "nicey nice" but to scold me for making a little space?
Pardon me, if it is some infringement on your conscience.


She is nice, even while growing teeth!

In the smirks of my niece is where I come home, and in a strong cup of Peets.
Both are not "of" you Washington.
And it's true of me too.
I'm not sure if I'm settled with that paradox.
Warm sentiments have their place, and it isn't here.


I want to love you Washington, but I wish to teach you a lesson  more.
The wisdom of my older sister is profitable in all this foolishness.
At four-years-old, she made this declarative statement into the video camera that is hard to forget:

"When tigers bite, you have to stand back."

The truth could not be more plain.
She didn't say that tigers don't bite.
Or even to get mad at tigers when they do.
She only said that when  tigers bite,
When they push and shove, and blast that sucker who cut them off in the round-about,
now subjected to a sounding horn for the next minute, to stand back.


To take in what has happened to make that person such a pill, and determine not to become one.
As quick as I am to point out the faults of others, I bear my own too.
I won't justify them.
No, I don't have to scoot over,  but I will.
And I will also let the waitress keep her two cents.


This city has bared it's teeth a time or two, and it has not gone unnoticed.
But according to Jamie, this is natural. Some creatures bite.
A city built to prosper will be abrasive.
But if I stand back, if I expect what is coming.
I will not be devoured by it.
I may even gain a kind of understanding for it.


For the many cultures, for the interns who bus my table when they're not engulfed in what's changing the world.
For the spoken word poets, who drop a line of tribute to Langston Hughes.
For the future Martin Luther Kings and Mother Teresas who are surely around me.
For the man or woman being Jesus to the forgotten and dejected in this urban wasteland of loneliness.


It is a tangible presence, the loneliness here.
That is why I stand back, why I push away.
Because sometimes it threatens me too.

District of Colombia, you are vast.

Yeah these are old shoes, that I've been walking in

I'm wearing weary, like it's a second skin

I've been looking for a place to lay my head

All this time like a vagabond, a homeless stranger

I've been wandering, all my life you've been calling me

To a home you know, I've been needing

I'm a broken stone, so lay me in the house you're building.

-Audrey Assad

Here find newcomer infatuations squashed beneath the gritty heel of urban anonymity. Something happened to me, and since it has, a strange disenchantment clings to my every thought about DC. I expected it to pass, as cantankerous moods often do, but this one has stuck to me like bad gum on a shoe.


What happened to disrupt my pleasant complacency? It's a bit of a gut punch to admit, but I'm beginning to tire of the vagabond life.


From the suburbs of sleepy Northern Virginia I went with a full weekend unplanned, and a backpack with limited outfit changes. To find myself in the disjointed sprawling complexity of District of Colombia, I wandered blocks without purpose. Should the marble and brick woo me into the right neighborhood, maybe I'd find a door with my name on it.


This as my motivation, I was more than willing to contend with the two following unknowns: who would join me on this adventure and where I would sleep when it was done. More descriptively than a vagabond, I have also become a mole. A traveling mole with bags. Bags with useful things--but  for  the airtight density in which they are packed.


My purchasing power lessened as my wallet became less easy to render. Imagine dodging an umbrella, a headband, bunchy scarf, bottle of sanitizer, lone makeup brush and cell phone charger before brushing the quilted sides of a grey wallet to pay for a latte. Stoop to pick up the stray leather glove that  leaped on the floor in the frenetic search, and you begin to see.
Every male now nods his head in agreement with the complete uselessness that is a woman's purse. I do not disagree, but challenge one to propose a more functional solution that does not evolve into a fanny pack. My city flats, which so neatly fold in half to be wedged also into the bulging mass of my handbag, remain the only concession I am willing to make of fashion for sensibility.


At times, there is no pride in standing on these two feet of mine, even with great shoes. The loneliness as I wandered, unearthed many undesirable questions in this time of being subjected to my own decisions. There are places to act and others to pause in my life, and no one to tell me which is the other. This street or that street?


 I even sat at the communal table at Le Pain Quotidien in case Yoda, or possibly, a friend were to emerge and offer some advice. Organic jams and morning brioche comforted me instead. To soothe is not always with words. Yes, I've become somewhat of a foodie, and even with an extra pound(ish) to show for it! But my suits still fit....I hope to stumble upon enthusiasm again and will search all the tucked away corners. You'll know it when I find it.

A manner of traveling.

Happiness is not a station to arrive at, but a manner of traveling.

--Margaret Lee Runbeck

I take the train to work. It might be my favorite part of the day, an excuse for my thoughts to slow down and settle, for one whole, protected hour.
Within that hour, these two truths have surfaced:


1. That time is a good gift.
2. That life proves truly miraculous when I slow down enough to get a good look at it.

Onboard, a sigh of preparation for work is released as the train pulls away from the platform at 7:21 AM and again at 5:41PM to chase down the sun.
Sometimes the continuum of days is dizzy and nauseating, like a cheap and spinning fair ride that I want off of.  But others days are a symphonic and lovely march, onward through the year.


Existing in a state of perpetual wonder is not something that humans do well. We're are too overstimulated and unimpressed to take in the glory of something as basic as "being."
We are simply too full to make room for the wonder. Full of agendas, full of emptiness, full of ourselves.



Oh Lord, God of our Fathers
This day, let it be known
That You Lord, are God of the present tense
Oh Lord, father of history
This day, let it be known
That you Lord, are present in our human events.
--Jon Foreman



The God of the present tense is in every moment, and when those moments are stolen for fears of the future, or regrets of the past, He is simply crowded out.


Taking a posture of boredom in these rare, in-between moments of travel is even more absurd. So much of life's"waiting time" could be assigned away as a petty inconvenience of adulthood, but the thanklessness of that perspective troubles me.


I will fight the apathy more, because God breathed one potently creative breath of life, just to make me "be." The world of my perception is far greater than the sum of a few predictable reactions in the universe. Everything around me, was a God-thought before it came to be, what we call so plainly "laws or theories" originated at the center of a being who calls himself the "I Am."


What a wonder. The weather is my favorite tangible reminder of this wild God I serve. I could spend hours marveling at the power of the storm or the tenderness of an afternoon downpour that suprised even the weatherman.
My minutes, my hours and seconds are all on loan. The 60 minutes to an hour, the 365 days for a year, the 100 years or under for my lifetime, all these things,will return to their true owner.


Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.


James 1:17 illustrates perfectly, the beauty of this continuum, a God who says that it is of His very essence and nature, to never change.


I guess riding the train makes me aware of my time as a gift. It burdens me with blessing to think of my Father's patient dispensation of freedom to humanity through time. Will we love or despise Him freely in the years yet to live, and in the end, what will our lives have to say? That we treasured Him more than gold and lingered in the moments slow, just to feel Him near?  Or did the days slip idly through our fingers? Forsaking His table of communion leaves little to speak for at the end.


Those who consider hell to be an unjust damnation of humanity would do well to reconsider. If the extravagant and costly sacrifice of Christ does not cause a yearning for Him to utterly consume our present moments, how much less appropriate would it be to demand the promise of His home beyond this earth? What a strange request that would be. Even the living God respects the spaces where he is not desired.  He takes no interest in prisoners, of that I am sure. But more certainly, He will take the  days of a servant with a deeply grateful heart.

...I've lingered long in fields of toppled idols, searching for a grain of desire in the rubble, even at your whisper of "beyond."


Before You now, the summation of all I could want, is my honest grief for the years, hours, minutes I wasted in those fields, waiting for the idols to resurrect. Their broken pieces did not assemble. I cursed even the dust.

we<3it.com

Still, You will redeem what the locust has eaten, the desolation and foolishness. Grant me this white dress to wear, and I'll say yes again and again.  I'll cast aside my wandering rags for the banquet-wear of the Bridegroom...

Bailamos!

Was the next lyric that came to mind: Let the rhythm take you over? If so, be not ashamed. I too harbor some loyalty to the pop sensation, Ricky Martin: my early introduction to Latin music.


And where does Latin music intuitively lead next?  To dancing.


Allow me to preface by saying that in all my 23 years, I have never maintained a desire so fervently than to learn the art of salsa. Zumba, much like Ricky, was just a tease, until at last I recieved a proper invitation to a Cuban dance club. As J-Lo so brilliantly quips in Shall We Dance, the rules of engagement are as follows:


1. Don't think.
2. Don't speak.
3. Don't move, unless you feel it.


Allow me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bibtqDxXv1o&feature=BF&playnext=1&list=QL&index=1


As with any form of dance, without complete and total surrender to the art, it is neither enjoyable to watch or participate. In my head, I knew this, but in my limbs, there were nerves.  A staccato stride masked my anxieties as I departed the Woodley Park Metro in my red t-strap heels. Once again, I was lost and semi-agitated, due to the regularity in which I find myself in this scenario. Being a nomad occasionally has its petty frusterations.


I strained ahead for the inconspicuous Habana Village sign that hovered just enough above street level, allowing me to miss it the first time around. The detour led me to the entrance of one particularly dark alley and a choice unfolded before me. The clock read 15 minutes late. Forced to consider this questionably reputable bi-way to arrive at my destination, I didn't spend too much time deliberating.  For the sake of convenience, I took off into the shadows, cursing Mapquest as I went. As stupid as I am thankful, I did not die.


The clanging salsa tunes filled my ears, and I spotted my friends at the corner of the bar. A full scan of the room located the usual suspects, ethnic couples in effortless rhythmic passion and non-ethnic singles, admirably trying. I was such a one that fell into that aspiring category, though friends assure me that based upon my preference in music and culture, my being born white was some kind of cosmic mistake.


I began loosening my shoulders just enough to find the beat and frankly tried hard not to look too much like I wanted to engage any dance partners in the immediate area. I had stranger danger, revisiting in my mind those swift but effective maneuvers to momentarily incapacitate any male. Thanks to my tactically skilled brother-in-law, I mostly expect physical closeness with strangers to involve the some form of lethal force. With shock and awe, you must be wondering how in the world I am still single.


Should you dare to guess what happened next? Someone asked me to dance.


He was far enough along in his basic salsa step that I obliged, with the small crowd of my friends smirking in our direction. It was fun even, aside from the frequency with which he began stepping on my already work week weary feet, a kind of pain more irritating with each time he tried to lead when clearly, my foot was still there.


I feigned thirsty to rescue my unfortunate toes, when I spotted my friend being spun around by a man who was to salsa, as white is to rice. Luis is the exact representation of all things one can appreciate about a region of the world that produces miracles: men who like to dance.
I watched from a distance with appropriate awe, when at last the their lesson ended and I all but fell off my chair to be next in line. He first asked me if I spoke Spanish, as he clearly did, so I did not attempt any fabricatations. He moved with a kind of ease that was characteristic of a native and I asked how he learned. With an unmistakable accent, he explained that in the Dominican Republic, "dancing is what we do."


I liked that.


His feet were much kinder than my last partner's and quite frankly, I was planning to hold onto this arrangement for a greater portion of the night. He spun me as if I  knew it was coming the whole time and his movements commanded that I follow. "Smaller steps, more hips" were the corrections he made to my frame, a very direct statement made less suggestively than you would imagine. That is just what I love about salsa: that for a single moment, two people could not be more in agreement about their bodies, for the sake of the dance. 


 But soon, he too needed a rest, probably from trying to losen my catcus-like attempt at certain unfamiliar movements. He kissed the top of my hand to acknowledge the dance, and walked away.


But the merengue would change all of that. My friends had retreated to the third floor to sit a few songs out when I saw my chance to really learn what salsa was all about.


Otra Vez!


As I settled into the side-to-side tempo shift, I was again following the confident lead of Luis. This was more a dance of passion than had reached my comfort level, but again, it was surrender to the movement that allowed the style to come forth. 


I realized, in being pulled up two inches off the floor from extravagant sweeping dip, that I was beginning to learn something. I know my form needed much more work, but there is just something about "doing it right" that I could feel. Then after aligning in a face-to-face hold, he locked arms for a lift. I was unprepared for my feet to leave the floor, but they did anyway. What were we doing? I didn't have time to figure out what was coming, but knew only in that moment, complete and careless freedom.


At just the opportune moment, my friend cut in to say that they were headed home. I was breathless and had no notions of taking the walk back solo to the metro as I had come. As I quickly obliged, I told Luis, "I'll see you next Saturday!" half assured that it would be a lie. Though coming to think of it, I may be ready for round two. My introduction to salsa demanded that I leave all premeditation behind, to simply breathe the air of the moment. That may even be the best part....