a momentous decade

well, the decade is leaving us.

in the year two thousand, i graduated sixth grade from Manchester GATE. I learned to be compassionate to people being bullied through the guilt of not being punished. There was a strained trip to New York and DC in there too.

in the year two thousand and one, my dad disappeared on NYE after cutting the zero in half to become a one in the jello mold. he said something about a dog...

in 2002, i graduated Computech. having rode the bus with Gillian Lynn for the past two years. best friendship cemented. for life. (other CT highlights: drama with McA, learning German, science 9).

same year at Roosevelt: i starred in a play that was another way my life could have been. i saw a counselor we derisively called Yoda. K ate ly n B owe n and I thought that Travis as Curly was the most exciting beautiful role there ever could be. McKenna.

2003, logan grew taller than me, and we mimed an incredible sword fight in theatre movements. i started water polo, went to camp, cried my way through a wedding, and thoroughly hated physics. christmas and new years. also did props for Anything Goes. caught a boy named josh's eye.

2004, probably the worst year of my life. did the YL thing. also: enjoyed crewing Footlight Frenzy

2005, seven brides set: designed. hush lights: designed. appt with death set: designed. awful push-ups. fricken koch. quit theatre (according to my mama)

2006: right around NYE got with Stu. found some outside happiness, peace, adventures. began to believe i was worthy of being loved. hey thats cool. stopped the theatre thing. won a medal or two for AD finally. drove my mom mad. went far away to Whitworth. flew home monthly. was loved.

2007: african life and culture. did the heart break thing. kept going to classes. didn't find whitworth as different as expected. tried to save people who didn't want to be saved.

2008: went to Vancouver, met a MUN family. worst dating decision ever. no self-esteem/respect. made confession in a parking lot, learned i wasn't the only one like me around. Houseless Challenge. initial interning at FIRM. one great Global Hearth semeter.

2009: little moment by a river side. hopped on a plane to South Africa. Lived. felt broken. drank. lived more. roadtrips, beautiful places. learned about friendships. and loved me some grade 7 students. came home. More FIRM support and loving. started my last cynical Whitworth year. Saw a tall boy striding across the Hello Walk. attempted seduction to said almost oblivious Finnish boy for a good semester. lived with my MUN family. was grateful. took 3 beautiful intl students home with me.

2010: Jouni. Jouni. jouni. california. drove. beauty. peace. calm. spokane. crazy busy. learned to communicate in a beautiful friendship. went to church and listened, cried. graduated! loved FIRM some more. best wedding in Texas. went to Europe. realized with perfect clarity that boy and I were not for one another. lived and loved in this Fresno place. Moved to Toronto. lived and loved in Romero House. at Christmas, began plotting my grand return home to my roots. my fourteen-year-old inner self's dreams came true. my 22 year old self was damn pleased, and happy to be a free independent competent woman.

good decade all in all.

i'm glad to be here.

Dignity. and receiving gifts gracefully.

Today I went with a woman to a food bank. because November is hard, and so is having many children. Tonight, she took me to get a haircut, because my hair has looked unkempt and overgrown since about June. She would not let me pay. She told me very strictly. No, I budget my money. This is the money I spend on my kids, this is the money my husband gets for the month, this is food money, this is my money. I am spending my money for you. I want to give you beautiful hair. (and then we joked that after beautiful hair comes beautiful boyfriend, so I guess we'll see how that works out)

...

I am so humbled.

...

I have so little to worry about (it seems), and I still can't find time to spend $20 on a haircut. I am too busy to care usually. My friend, my sister, my mama, walked me to the mall, introduced me to her friend, and flipped through magazines until we found the perfect cut for my head. She nodded approvingly and loudly praised the hairdresser, and I walked out with beautiful hair. We spent all of an hour gone, and now I look so much better.

...

I tried to sneak money into her pocket, but I think I really offended my friend. I wanted her to spend money on her kids (to whom she is a fantastic mother). She said NO! no christine. this is my money, not yours.

...

I am so loved. and so blessed. and tonight, so humbled.

(and I have great new hair)

Am I crazy for understanding racism?

The two sides as I see it:

1. Unilateral Condemnation of any racist words and/or actions

• because if we tolerate racism, everything we stand for (as romero house) comes into question
• because our society is so perfect and racism free, and we all live in Canada now
• because we are secure enough in our identity, social standing, and future we don't need to hide behind racist attitudes
• because its "wrong"

2. Entering into dialogue and trying to understand it.

• because I don't come from the same country as either of the people in question
• because stereotypes are rooted in some form of truth, and then unfairly universally applied - conversely, if someone only steals sometimes, is that the same as only beating you some of the time??
• because people believe their beliefs are True. That's why they believe them.
• because I think that "unilateral intolerance of racism" is a cultural value that is learned over time when you are secure in your own place in society.
• because I don't think I can say "you are wrong" to someone's life experience as they know it to be true. I think I can say "I don't think that's always true". but thats not quite as strong...
• because everyone's a little bit racist some times. and racism is normal to every society.
• because racism and oppression drain life from the oppressor as well as the oppressed

Thoughts for Interns

I am an intern at Romero House, a community of refugee claimants and interns, which is at the heart of a greater Romero Community of our supporters, former residents, drop-ins, volunteers, neighbors, advocates and more. We have finished our third full week in the office, and already we find ourselves exhausted. Yet today, at our liturgy, I found myself crying from the sheer amount of blessedness I felt surrounded by (grammar is apparently directly related to the amount of rest one gets in life).

So here are my thoughts, on encouragement, guilt, and relying.

we must encourage one another. What's more, we must rely on one another. We must assume the best in one another, and also assume that we are all trying our best. We must rely on the good in each of the residents. These are not "ours", nor do we need to be their best friend. We must walk with them. We point them in the right direction, and entrust them to the care of someone else more skilled that we. Like the Samaritan, who left the wounded man in an inn, promising to cover the difference of the cost of care, we don't have to continue pouring our oil and wine into the deep wounds that a refugee bears. We love our neighbor, and then we continue on our journey.

we are friends? we are more and less and different. we are a community. we love and uplift and support one another. we don't need gossip or dissension amongst us. we are here for the somewhat long-run. we are here for 11 months.

next topic. guilt.

we are insufficient. we are not trained professionals. we have learned about basic issues in school, we have studied, and read books, and volunteered in the community. we are not trained social workers, we are not psychologists, we are not lawyers. we are "companions". "settlement workers". every thing that we do is insufficient. we are not the best. we are who is present. we trust in God's grace to provide, and to cover our insufficiencies. we must not allow ourselves to feel guilty for not putting in an hour here, or an hour there, for not starting another task at 10pm on a Saturday night. To feel guilty implies that we could do better. that we are individually capable of doing everything in our insanely huge job descriptions. to claim guilt is to imply that perfection is possible. we are guilty every second of every day, which is why we must claim grace. grace that covers all short-comings.

we must be able to find joy in what we are doing. we must be able to claim that it brings us life to be concerned about what the father is about. we must find aspects of each day that bring us life. that draw us closer to who we have been called to be. yes?

in a new place

I am starting over, in the big ways,

in the deepest ways, I feel steady.

I am here, all of me, has moved to Toronto.

I will become more Me as I growlearnlivelove Here at Romero House.

I am excited. I am tired. I am willing.

I find myself here. (statement and self-fulfilling prophecy I think)

. . .

still think about this Erik boy when my brain slows. praying for AF, KB, KH, SH, R? and AA. praying with? praying over? sending prayers towards? praying and slowly breathing and living in the present as respectfully as I can.

at least those songs have left my head.

. . .

it is time to sleep. in the morning we will go canoeing. and I will pray I find peace on the water.

a few quotes of the day courtesy of Father Jack.

"Love is the ultimate gravity"

"Peter? get your ass off that boat and walk towards me."

"this is my community. This is my community??. THIS is my COMMUNITY?!?!?! you know, when Jesus was dying on the cross, I don't think it was very enjoyable, but he was willing and he followed what the Father wanted"

any one have any thoughts on becoming better at both humility and greatness?

the balance between being Good at something (knowing it), and not being proud?

on running continuously (thriving?) and that crash-and-burn that seems to always follow?

.

I feel like I am learning slowly how to be really good at volunteer coordination, at being excited to see everyone, at listening to what needs to be done, and finding delicate ways to talk to the right person about it all, at laughing at most things (although sometimes kicking the kids out of FIRM when they come too early, and in Jaret's words, spoiling all the fun)
.
I love what I get to do here. I love the opportunities I am graciously given, and the people I get to listen to, and interact with. I LOVE the kids. I love the chaos and the balance that we always return to.
.
I did however (between writing those top 2 paragraphs and now) catch myself some Strep Throat that has been kinda nasty to my poor body, even after sleeping all weekend and taking anti-biotics and being good.
.

I feel like there are two ways my life could go forward from here.
One is very international
The other is very local
Its not a new struggle, or a profound realization. It feels like the simple truth.
I am qualified to work abroad. I am interested in living in new places, discovering new beautiful things to love. (sidenote: watch the History Boys. sidenote: in Howard's End, the higher class of people who have discovered the word "I", instead of just "want that car" "need that house" "want your money" contrast with the masculinity of "I" according to Virginia Woolf. sorry. that's the English-literature side of me coming out)
I could even feel called to work abroad. I like international people a lot (the sorts of people who have seen the world beyond their ordinary sphere). I have the resume. I have "cross-cultural competancies". I have the degree. I would love to study more, and use my brain, and get more degrees.
I'm moving to fricken Canada next year. I loved being in the Netherlands. It would be so cool to work in an international organization like the characters in the stories I wrote this year for Laurie. I dream about that kind of a life.
.
and I love Fresno. this little corner of the world where nothing would be guarenteed for me. When I was looking for jobs at Whitworth, before I graduated, I couldn't find anything. At All. Now that I'm here, I hear rumors of this, get e-mails about that, see grants into which I could write myself a job. And they wouldn't be very much money. And there is nothing permanent, really. nothing glamorous or glorious. But so so Good.
and the summer sunsets color the whole sky pink. What more could there be to life?
these Hmong babies steal my heart in the first second I walk onto FIRM campus.
.
here I would be one more person who didn't live up to her potential. and I dunno if I'd go to more school. and I dunno who I would end up with. I can see myself as one of those obese nonprofit ladies who almost nag, and spend all their days working, to go home to an empty house.
.
Beware the False Dichotomies (and avoid the all or nothings).
.
I dunno exactly what shade of gray my life will turn out being colored.

Roads to Take

I was feeling really moody and angry and blech a few evenings ago, so I went for a walk. It was one of the best things I've done all week. It is SO good to be in Real Life. Nothing spectacular happened on my walk. I saw people washing their cars, kids playing and riding bikes. I saw dogs. I saw flowers. It feels so healthy to feel a part of a dynamic community, of people who are just happily living their ordinary own life. And i've been busy at home, helping my mom with dishes, and cooking, and grading papers for her. (ha. i feel so powerful). I'm really glad I get to take a break from school, and also that I can hopefully have engagement with the Real life stuff throughout any other schooling I end up going through.

In Women Writers, we read a line of a poem "These are roads to take when you think of your country". I've been thinking of it, throughout my journeys. We drove past a sawmill next to a lumber yard, loading processed wood onto a train. I've never seen that before, in my whole life. I've played in an abandoned sawmill (if you ever come to the valley in summer, i'll take you, its wonderful, hidden in a forgotten meadow, with old cabins and a post office and a general store, all abandoned). How sad of a society, where I have never seen trees in process of being made into hardware store wood. I even know how to build things, how to turn hardware store wood to fake walls, tables, shelves. But somehow its different to see the sawdust piling out of the tube. across the filled parking lot. onto the pile of sawdust as large as a barn for elephants.

The roads to take, when you think of your country, they are filled with ordinary people working normal jobs. the non-glamorous ones, that I take for granted until I see the dust whirling in the parking lot. The roads where mom and pop grocery still stand. Open for some precarious number of hours, always freshly closed by the time we wander past.

Questioner (Michael Klein, Boston Phoenix): One of your societies for many years has been California, after many years of living and writing on the East Coast. There is a strong sense that those vastly different landscapes have greatly influenced you internally as well -- what Muriel Rukeyser may have meant when she said: "There are roads to take, when you think of your country."

I dropped a dear friend off in Oakdale, outside of Modesto, on the way home. And though I pride myself in my Valley roots, I'd never seen an intersection with the cornfield across from the dairy farm across from the livestock pavilion across from the railroad tracks. Everything a cow would ever see in its whole life, exists (as it should), within a hundred feet of the place a calf could be born.

I drove Avenue 12 across from 99 to 41. Through the orchards, driving straight. Peaches, Nectarines, Plums, all to-be. Between trucks and semis, we drive this valley our home.

When I got back to Fresno, I started taking the surface streets, so I could reaquaint myself with the Ordinary here. The smog isn't to bad yet, so I can still see the Sierra Nevadas in the distance, although the nearest foothills are significantly clearer. Cedar is another street, and I can bike out Bullard to get strawberries. That's a different sort of road to take. Going east, I hit Fresno State land quickly, and on those roads I learn about how almonds look when they are changing from green to red. What grapes taste like ripe off the vine.
Fresno St is a street I take when I think of my hometown. I love driving to see where the graffiti has emerged, to see what new shopping center has been repainted. I take Fresno street south south south. Past the churches, the firehouses. Apartment Complexes of varying brightness of white paint. More dirt lots emerge, but so do more people walking on the street. I drive past my old elementary school. There is an old hospital and a huge dirt lot that is finally turning into the mixed income housing that was promised by many since the old hazardous section-8 housing was torn down.
An apartment burnt down in Somerset a few months back. Firm always has new graffiti markings that are creatively covered and erased. And then the freeway underpass. There are always people waiting in the shadow of cement for the city busses.
I drive slow, with the windows down, and somehow I find my roots again. I breathe the dry warm air, listen to everyone else's music, and reconnect to this place.

Adrienne Rich: Well, you know, California is the most bizarre place to be, in a certain sense. It's so laden with contradictions. It is, in some ways, almost flaunting of them. I think it flaunts more than any other part of the country, in the visual sense: the extraordinary visual degradation, the extraordinary beauty. There are still these vast tracts of wilderness. There is this amazing ocean. You're constantly living in a kind of cognitive dissonance here.

This whole state is jobless, bankrupt. Fresno, no less than anywhere else. I would stay here if I could. Milagros says FIRM could just find money to pay me. I somehow doubt it. No one seems to have a job around here. We're all leaving... On the brink of Fresno's longawaited turn-around... we still float away...
I'm excited to spend some time in the mountains this summer. Spend some time on the Pacific Ocean. Maybe drive fast to that atrocious Katy Perry song.

Not Radical?

Jouni doesn't see me as radical at all. He sees me as Nice. Compassionate. Caring.

Lessons on Guilt

Sometimes I am overwhelmed by how much I have. Not in a positive, "oh I'm so blessed, I should be thankful" way, but in a "I'm a horrible person, how dare I?" way. I am graduating from the private sheltered small liberal-arts Presbyterian Whitworth in three short weeks. Hopefully with a BA and a few minors :)

I will go home this summer. To fill myself with fresh fruit and sunshine, before I embark on my next great Leaving. This time I will leave for Toronto Canada. A metropolitan city of 4 million, of theatre, of diversity, of ethnic food, and of Romero House, where I will be working and living. working for a small stipend, and free room and board. working for justice, hope, redemption. Working for the families I have yet to meet. The mentors from whom I have yet to learn.

I will live in community. live in balance, i hope oh i hope.

. i forgot . first I will fly across the Atlantic to spend two short weeks visiting various friends in various European locations. i have been saving. i have saved. i am going to Europe, and refuse to be a tourist.

i will go to Europe. i will have been in Europe. i will have taken a small sample of a few small places. so that next time, I will Know. what I want: what i want to see, to do, to experience, to remember.

how much money to save for the Next Time.

With all these exciting possibilities, adventures, journeys ahead of me. I feel tormented sometimes by people who I grew up alongside who are in Fresno. who will return to Fresno and be happy (or not). Paulo says once you leave, you'll never come back the same. Opportunities will keep coming up, different doors will be opened. and I will wander further and further from my roots. and I will be independent (or selfish, depending on your perspective).

but on the other hand. I've always been like that.

"neeny do it self" i said as a toddler. neeny do it self. neeny go out into the world and do what she's gonna do all by her self. i left computech for rsa. i left roosevelt for whitworth. i'm leaving whitworth for Toronto. i don't do things the way most people do. sometimes its to my own detriment, but I like it this way.... apparently.

without sensing his/her own irony, someone told me once that "to whom much is given, much is expected".

.

I am ridiculously lucky to be able to imagine ways to go new places, and have the luxury of being able to live out whatever crazy idea I dream up and go for. no babies to tie me down. no parents dependent on my income. no boy that i would need to follow. and i trust my instincts (and this Jesus guy when I really think about it) enough to GO without a whole lot of fear or trepidation. i won't know anyone in Toronto, but I will meet so many amazing people, so why would that scare me? live alongside social justice heroes. and RealLife Heroes who manage to make it to Canada alive. live deeply. richly. in a temporary community. for a year. and maybe some months after that. and then go forward to my next exciting adventure. we'll see what it is once the time gets closer.

Jane Addams (by Gwendolyn Brooks)

I am Jane Addams.

I am saying to the giantless time -

to the young and yammering, to the old and corrected,

well, chiefly to children coming home

with worried faces and questions about world-survival-

"Go ahead and live your life.

You might be surprised. The world might continue."

It was not easy for me, in the days of the giants.

And now they call me a giant.

Because my capitals were Labour, Reform, Welfare,

Tenement Regulation, Juvenile Court Law (the first),

Factory Inspection, Workmen's Compensation,

Woman Suffrage, Pacifism, Immigrant Justice.

And because

Black, brown, and white and red and yellow

heavied my hand and heart.

I shall tell you a thing about giants

that you do not wish to know:

Giants look in the mirror and see

almost nothing at all.

But they leave their houses nevertheless.

They lurch out of doors

to reach you, the other stretchers and strainers.

Erased under ermine or loud in tatters, oh,

money or mashed, you

matter.

You matter, and giants

must bother.

I bothered.

Whatever I was tells you

the world might continue. Go on with your preparations,

moving among the quick and the dead;

nourishing here, there;

pressing a hand

among the ruins

and among the

seeds of restoration.

So Speaks a giant. Jane.

ps from Christine: check out this amazing woman's wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Addams

It is April, and I am so tired. I have been going and going and going for so long, and I haven't breathed in so long. I am moving to Toronto soon, so in my limited spare time, my brain has been exploding with possibilities of a new life.

Today I went to church to hear Whitworth women's choir. Their voices were beautiful, but all I could do in the stillness of listening was to cry. I am so tired. I need to sleep. I need to rest. I need to come back in touch with the core of my identity.

I also need to plan a fundraiser for iClub, to write a few more papers this week, to plan a bachelorette party, to run elections and do the rechartering stuff for iClub, to attend a meeting with Women's Auxiliary, to go to all my classes, to figure out budget stuff, to work 10-12 hours a week so I don't need to leave home this summer to work, to read GD papers, and of course, my normal reading and homework.

I can't survive by just doing that necessary stuff.

I need relationship and community,

so this week I also need to have coffee with friends whom I love, I need to eat chilean food at Global Hearth, I need to reconnect with people feeling abandoned and unloved by me, and I need to start doing my "last time to ________" activities all over spokane.

.

Today in the car, we were talking about Christianity. I made the preposterous claim that with God, I don't need to be perfect, that I can give other people grace, and receive grace from them when I fall short. And that I don't need other people to satisfy my needs, that I can somehow rest in a greater identity of Christ.

.

Its true.

but why do I need to do all these things then?

.

grace and truth.

love,

Christine

Emotions of starting something NEW

So, I have been offered and have accepted a paid internship in Toronto Canada for September 2010-August 2011. I'm moving to Canada. I, Christine, am moving, to live, in Canada. for a year.

This feeling reminds me of when I whizzed through customs in London. I feel like I'm tricking the world into thinking I'm an adult. And that there's no way it should be this easy. But it's real and its happening.

I'm looking at grad programs too. I want to look into Diaspora and Transnational Studies. SO COOL. SO CUTTING EDGE in such a nerdy political science way. Most of the programs are just starting, but are starting based on a perceived need. University of Toronto has a cool multidisciplinary master's program (and phD, too). and i found a cool PhD program in Berlin. UMass-Amherst is starting a program too. I could write my doctorate thesis in Political Science, with my own personal specialization being this stuff, anywhere tho. but MA program in this would be so cool first.

. . .

A friend from high school found me on facebook recently.

Classmate: I go to fcc. I'm working on my liberal studies degree..now. u? Yeah, i help out at my dad's restaurant :) u should stop by someday

April 1 at 9:57pm ·

Me:

yeah, i'm up in washington state right now, but i will for sure stop by this summer. i'm getting an international studies degree right now. its kinda political science, but focused on the whole world

April 1 at 10:11pm ·

Classmate:

that's great! how is the apple state? :} yeah, let me know a few weeks in advance, so i can reserve a spot for. Sounds good, sounds so miss Barker like :}

April 1 at 10:18pm ·

Classmate:

JK

let me know a few hours in advance :}

April 1 at 10:20pm ·

Me:) washington is cold and cloudy. most of the time. and the fruit doesn't taste nearly as good as fruit at home does. i miss fresno a lot. but school is school so i keep going. and i'll for sure let you know when miss barker wants to stop by.

April 1 at 10:43pm ·

Classmate:

i love that kind of weather. I don't like the summer much, i'm like get away from mr. sun and go hide behind that tree :P but i would not be able to survive without good produce. i'm a valley girl, don't you know :) miss fresno? afd joke? lol, but, yeah, i understand, ur family and loved ones r here. But miss barker needs to do her thang before she steps back into little old fresno ;)

I dunno how I feel about that. On one hand, hey, I'm making it in the real world. The non-Fresno, non-ghetto, non-valley world. Most of my class couldn't even graduate high school. I'm now looking at international PhD programs.

I feel really guilty. and i feel really blessed and really lucky.

so so lucky.

I've gotten such a good education here. I've learned a lot. I can get papers back with 100% grades. With the exception of this year, I've been mostly miserable here. I don't fit here.

but I don't fit at home with this classmate anymore. She called me miss barker. miss barker who makes reservations at the Italian restaurant her parents own. I mean. I was an RSA kid when I was at Roosevelt. but I had friends that were RHS. I talked to people in all my classes. I didn't sit by the other RSA kids mostly.

miss barker need to do her thang before she steps back into little old fresno

it kinda breaks my heart.

Five Poems of Home

Love is an orange
twisted off the highest
branch of the backyard tree
by a tall boy balanced
on the roof of the barren doghouse
on our last foggy morning

* * *

he left the low fruit hanging, so my mama
could reach them dangling and dancing in the fog.
Her bad back is alone right now, aching. She is sipping
weak coffee at the leaf-less table, playing sudoku

as she swallows a slice of the juiciest orange imaginable.


* * *


Unpalatable oranges are sold in Spokane. they must be bought
by people who have never tasted truth.
our Oranges spray sacred oil, dress our palms
as their unshriveled sweet flesh is broken
for you to imbibe with joy and thanks.

These shrunken oranges are not to blame.

I would be sour, too, after bouncing a thousand miles in a crowded box,
to emerge into florescent lights of safeway, no fog to call my own.

* * *

(dreaming of home, salivating over fresh fruit
What are endless rows of orange trees in a foggy orchard
when a sunny false spring has arrived in Spokane?)

* * *

we filled brown paper bags with love, to sustain us on our journey,
or bequeath on future hosts. Speeding through orchards on 99,
the perfume of his quiet peeling saturated the air. The orange exhaled
oils with each peel, anointing his hands with travelling mercies.
I was driving north, away from home; eating one segment
of sweetness after another. and I don't remember when the fog cleared.

can you tell the sun was shining today?

I have found my Whitworth rhythm. Meetings start at 8am, and flamingo flocking ends at 11pm.

I write agendas, call people to remind them, go to class and do most of my readings.

and I am happy.

The last two days have been filled with thoughts on identity (individual and collective)

This is my time. I am here right now to ask all the questions that I need to ask, and respectfully listen for answers from people with life-wisdom. It is liberating.

I am so thankful for: Amowi, Esther, Doug, and Vic

because they take me seriously.

also: this boy who wrote me a 9 page letter

because he makes more sense than most of the world combined.

also: Laurie's classes

because she offers legitimacy to our experiences and perceptions. which is beautiful and also freeing.

also: WU trippers

because they are great, and because of ninja team names

and because of the dedication that the planning team has put into this crazy project.

. . .

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

. . .

RealLife > Whitworth

I feel more balanced and more concrete when I spend time off-campus in the RealWorld. I like to sit in a church that has families of all ages, and old people with hearing aides. I like to see the mall filled with people with RealLives. I love summer when I get to be home. I spend my days working at FIRM, where I am surrounded by a full community of all-ages and we all have symbiotic roles to play. I spend evenings with friends or family. My life is full, and I have meaning.
At Whitworth, my life is full, but I drown myself in depression and cynicism. There is a magic balance where I can still get everything done well and also not have a moment to stop to think. That is the only way I have learned to do Whitworth well. When I am off balance, I have to go somewhere new. It can be a meadow by the river behind my house. It can be a museum. It can be the mall. It can be a new coffeeshop, or a conversation on the bus. When I get back in contact with RealLife, I remember how RealLife works, and my tiny but important role in it all.
. . .
I was told last night that its presumptuous to say that OutThere is RealLife, and here is only pseudo-reality. I am presupposing that the nice people swarming this campus don't have some essential quality of life. Who am I to judge?
I contend that we pay good money to be isolated from the harshness of RealLife. We are a group of 2,500 people in the prime of our lives. We rarely die. We eat 2-3 (and more) meals a day without having to think about where our food comes from. Of course there are those who choose to skip meals to lose weight or spend their time elsewhere. I've been there, too. Our main concerns (outside of social interests which transcend any monetary barrier) are homework and "earning" letter grades, or at best, learning material written and taught by our elders.
It doesn't matter to me what the inner life of my fellow students is like. It isn't necessary because they have the luxury to be able to meditate on vocation and worldview and life purposes. If they choose not to take themselves seriously, its their loss. (I do take time to have coffee and get to know people who take their position seriously. I love people like this; they just aren't my passion)
Our isolation is also our loss. We lose out on the love of older people in our community. Kids lose our continual presence in their lives. Although many Whitworth students volunteer with various organizations, its just another time-block in a busy student schedule. We lose out on grocery store conversations. We miss out on demonstrations on corners, and seeing into the eyes of our city's homeless. We don't see kids walking home from the bus stop. Our lives consist of us. and our friends. and our computers. This isn't Real to me.
. . .
Connecting theory to practice is a major tenet of service-learning. What good does our education do us, if we can't connect to a complete community (not just one made up of our like-minded peers)? Furthermore, does this separation through education make a permanent break between us and our communities?
I feel like it does for me. I feel like the more and more educated I become, the less and less I have in common with most people from my home. I have more in common with educated people. I have less to talk about with former friends. I know too much, that even our grand conversations about big dreams for Fresno are filled with my obscure(in Fresno) references to dead Europeans who have already thought about these things for many years.
What is knowledge if I can't use it in community?
Although Whitworth has a very tight community on campus, the tightness is not as easily accessed from the outside. The culture has strong expectations for behavior, morality and vocabulary (and accent and skin-tone, although religious fervor can triumph both). I don't see our connection to Spokane. I don't see my connection to this community here, and I am seeing how thinly stretched my connection to my home community has become as well.
. . .
When I leave here, I will enter the RealWorld again. I will keep figuring out how to do my finances better. I will have a job, and will relax after work doing whatever. I know that my lovely depression and trust issues will persist, but I feel so much better about them when I am in the presence of a varied society that spends its time on mundane RealLife things.
I really am idealistic after all.

expectations for the next 103 days.

I'm having difficulties getting reacclimated to normal school sleeping/waking hours. I've been staying up too late, and sleeping in too late, and its hard to change those quickly.
This semester I am taking 3 English classes, 1 film class, 1 campus-based research class, and 2 polisci classes (international political economy and research methods).
I am going to Louisiana for Spring Break. I will pay for it somehow with Bonner. I need to be working 12+ hours a week for Bonner, and every day that I procrastinate on getting something set up means more hours later that I will need.
This semester I imagine that I will learn a lot about Voice and personal experience. Between Native American Literature and Women Writer's, I think that I will gain very different counter-hegemonic knowledge sets.
. . .
Quotes from my first days of classes
"I tell everyone this. Before you marry someone, first go on a roadtrip with them. Learn whether or not you can live with them before you make a final decision to get married" -Esther Louie who went motorcycling across Europe for 3 months with the man who became her husband.
"I learned how to live with intention. You have to wake up in the morning and decide what you are going to BE for" -Esther Louie
"What is it like to be the product of a culture that a more powerful and numerous people has attempted to extinguish?" -Vic Bobb
"I ask for your hometown, because I freak out if I don't know where you're from. how can I know anything about you ever if not where you come from?"
"I was not afraid. I lay in the quiet
and looked, and did the wordless thought.
my mind was getting its oxygen
direct, the rich mix by mouth.
I hated no one. I gazed and gazed,
and everything was interesting. I was
free, not yet in love. I did not
belong to anyone. I had drunk
no milk, yet - no one had
my heart. I was not very human. I did not
know there was anyone else. I lay
like a god, for an hour, then they came for me
and took me to my mother."
-Sharon Olds in 180 more extraordinary poems for every day by Billy Collins
...
observations:
Women Writers: overflowing with white women and a few men VS Native American Literature: empty seats scattered between multi-racial Americans of both genders
I talk too much in class
inter-sectionality in dominant/non-dominant identity groups

christmas break

I drove so many miles over the past four weeks.
I felt a lot of things.
talked about everything under the sun
.
I didn't take my own pictures, and don't know which stories to share.
.
it was completely wonderful. and now I'm back at Whitworth. which is different. and maybe less wonderful. but so goes life.
.
highlights (in the order that I think of them):
1. Christmas with so many people whom I love (and I only cried once! thats a new Christmas record for me!) i felt so loved.
2. swimming in our swimming pool. it was so freaking cold, Iveth and I started screaming the second we hit the water, and immediately rushed to get out of the pool. Jouni, on the other hand, swims back and forth a bit before he gets out. oh, and the most hillarious part of that whole escapade was my brothers speedo from 2-3 years ago.... let's just say it didn't cover all that it used to...
3. endless fresh oranges off the tree.
4. Nate's newest way of eating corn flakes
5. moments of complete peace near the ocean
6. jumproping with seaweed at Carmel Beach
7. basking in the light of the full moon and listening to music while sipping red wine
8. New Years Eve. ha. cuddling and sharing stories, poppers at midnight, and then a stumbling laughing journey to look at the sea and the moon.
9. watching my friends find their own things to love about the Central Coast
10. the drive from sacramento to fresno, after staying awake to drive through the night, and not really talking a whole bunch for a while, all the sudden, lots just spilled out. it was so comforting to know that there were still so many more things to say and discuss.
11. disneyland with the boy. nuff said.
12. really good Himalayan cuisine restaurant
13. the whole time we spent in San Diego. Balboa Park then sunset at Coronado. best pizza ever from BJs.
14. mornings when we got back to Fresno
15. Golden Gate Park. and our hostel was pretty cool too.
16. The Beat Museum. the world is a beautiful place to be born into by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
17. perfecting our parallel parking teamwork and our ability to not pay for parking
18. our general ability to never be completely lost, and always have one of us remember the important things the other forgot
19. homemade bread and other delicious food at the Bergmans
20. Finnish sauna and Finnish church